
Glass_ER^i 







Book 



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SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES 



bym/guizot, 



LONDON : 
KCCHAKD BENTLEY, NEW BUBLINGTON STREET, 

^ubltsijcr in ©rtmtarg to p?cr fffajcsig. 

"The Copyright of this Work has heen assigned by M. Guizot to the Publisher.] 

1852. 






LONDON I 
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



PREP ACE. 

The Essay on the Life and Works of Shakspeare, 
which I reprint m the present volume, appeared for the 
first time as an Introduction to the French edition of 
Shakspeare's complete works, which was published at 
Paris in 1821. This edition was based upon the 
translation of Shakspeare's plays which was commenced 
in 1776 by Le Tourneur, and which, at that period, 
gave rise to such animated disputes in the literary 
world, and especially in the Correspondence of Voltaire 
and of Laharpe. In 1821, I undertook to edit this trans- 
lation of Shakspeare's principal works, and I revised 
six tragedies, ten historical dramas, and three comedies. 
M. de Barante kindly assisted me by translating 
" Hamlet ; " and M. Ainedee Pichot, who is so 
thoroughly acquainted with England and English 
literature, undertook to revise all the remaining plays. 



PREFACE. 



Since that period, other translations of Shakspeare, 
both partial and complete, in prose and in verse, have 
been published. Whatever their merit may be, they 
have not been successful ; and no one will ever succeed, 
except imperfectly, in transfusing into our language, 
with their true character and full effect, the works of 
this prodigious genius. This arises, not only from the 
fact that every translation must necessarily be imperfect 
and insufficient, but also on account of the particular 
turn of Shakspeare's mind and style, as well as that of his 
national tongue. Shakspeare is excellent in substance, 
but deficient in form ; he discerns, and brings admirably 
into view, the instincts, passions, ideas, — indeed, all the 
inner life of man ; he is the most profound and most 
dramatic of moralists ; but he makes his personages 
speak a language which is often fastidious, strange, 
excessive, and destitute of moderation and naturalness. 
And the English language is singularly propitious to 
the defects, as well as to the beauties, of Shakspeare ; 
it is rich, energetic, passionate, abundant, striking ; it 
readily admits the lofty flights, and even the wild 
excesses, of the poetic imagination; but it does not possess 
that elegant sobriety, that severe and delicate precision, 
that moderation in expression and harmony in imagery, 
which constitute the peculiar merit of the French 



PREFACE. 



language ; so that, when Shakspeare passes from 
England into France, if he is translated with scrupulous 
fidelity, his defects become more apparent, and more 
offensive, beneath his new dress, than they were in his 
native form ; and if, on the other hand, it is attempted 
to adapt his language, even in the slightest degree, to 
the genius of our tongue, he is inevitably robbed of a 
great part of his wealth, force, and originality. A literal 
translation and a free rendering do wrong to Shakspeare 
in a different manner, but in an equal degree. When 
he is translated, or when he is read in a translation, it 
must never be forgotten that he labours under one or 
other of these disadvantages. 

In continuation of the Essay on the Life and Works 
of Shakspeare, I have published, in this volume, a series 
of Notices of his principal dramas, and an Essay on 
Othello and Dramatic Art in France in 1830, which 
the Duke de Broglie inserted, at that period, in the 
" Revue Francaise," and which he has kindly allowed 
me to include in this volume. These Essays constitute, 
in some sort, proofs in support of the ideas which, 
in 1821, 1 endeavoured to develop regarding the nature 
of dramatic art in general, and the particular and 
diversified forms which it has assumed among those 
nations and in those ages in which it has shone with 



vi PREFACE. 

greatest brilliancy : — an art so powerful and attractive, 
that, in all times and at all places, in the period of its 
infancy as well as in that of its maturity — of its glory 
as well as of its decline — it has ever remained invincibly 
popular, and has never ceased to charm all men either 
by its masterpieces or by its sparkling dinettes. 

GUIZOT. 

Paris, June 10, 1852. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES . . . . . . 1 

SHAKSPEARES TRAGEDIES: — 

Romeo and Juliet 185 

, Hamlet 200 

King Lear 213 

Macbeth 222 

Julius Cesar 241 

Othello 251 

DRAMATIC ART IN FRANCE 265 

SHAKSPEARES HISTORICAL DRAMAS 347 

King John . . . ' 349 

King Richard II. 358 

King Henry IV 367 

King Henry V 376 

King Henry VI -378 

King Richard III 393 

King Henry VIII • . 400 



viii CONTENTS. 

SHAKSPEAKE'S COMEDIES — 

Page 

The Merchant of Venice . . . . ' . . . 403 

The Merry Wives of Windsor 409 

The Tempest . . 416 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES, 



Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke 
of Shakspeare's genius ; and although he spoke of him 
merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of 
opinion that Voltaire had said too much in his favour. 
Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation 
to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which 
they considered as crude as they were coarse. 

At the present day, all controversy regarding Shak- 
speare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one 
ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater 
question has arisen, namely, whether Shakspeare's 
dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire. 

This question I do not presume to decide. I merely 
say that it is now open for discussion. We have been 
led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall 
endeavour to point out the causes which have brought 
it about ; but at present I insist merely upon the fact 
itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that 



2 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no 
longer remain restricted to the limits within which it 
was formerly confined. 

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the 
human mind ; it is compelled to follow it in its course — 
to transport itself beneath the horizon under which it is 
conveyed ; to gain elevation and extension with the 
ideas which occupy its notice, and to consider the 
questions which it discusses under the new aspects and 
novel circumstances in which they are placed by the 
new state of thought and of society. 

My readers will not, therefore, be surprised that, in 
order properly to appreciate Shakspeare, I find it neces- 
sary to make some preliminary researches into the nature 
of dramatic poetry and the civilisation of modern 
peoples, especially of England. If we did not begin 
with these general considerations, it would be impossible 
to keep pace with the confused, perhaps, but active 
and urgent ideas, which such a subject originates in all 
minds. 

A theatrical performance is a popular festival ; that it 
should be so is required by the very nature of dramatic 
poetry. Its power rests upon the effects of sympathy — 
of that mysterious force which causes laughter to beget 
laughter ; which bids tears to flow at the sight of tears, 
and which, in spite of the diversity of dispositions, 
conditions, and characters, produces the same impression 
on all upon whom it simultaneously acts. For the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 3 

proper development of these effects, a crowd must be 
assembled ■ those ideas and feelings which would pass 
languidly from one man to another, traverse the serried 
ranks of a multitude with the rapidity of lightning ; 
and it is only when large masses of men are collected 
together that we observe the action of that moral elec- 
tricity which the dramatic poet calls into such powerful 
operation. 

Dramatic poetry, therefore, could originate only among 
the people. At its birth it was destined to promote 
their pleasures ; in their festivities it once performed an 
active part; and with the first songs of Thespis the 
chorus of the spectators invariably united. 

But the people are not slow to perceive that the 
pleasures with which they can supply themselves are 
neither the best, nor the only, pleasures which they are 
capable of enjoying. To those classes which spend their 
days in toil, complete repose seems to be the first and 
almost the sole condition of pleasure. A momentary 
suspension of the efforts or privations of daily life, an 
interval of movement and liberty, a relative abundance ; 
this is all that the people seek to derive from those 
festivities which they are able to provide for themselves, — 
these are all the enjoyments which it is in their power to 
procure. And yet these men are born to experience 
nobler and keener delights ; they are possessed of 
faculties which the monotony of their existence has 
allowed to lie dormant in inactivity. If these faculties be 

B 2 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 



awakened by a powerful voice • if an animated narrative, 
or a stirring scene stimulate these drowsy imaginations, 
these torpid sensibilities, they will gain an activity which 
they could never have imparted to themselves, but which 
they will rejoice to receive \ and then will arise, without 
the co-operation of the multitude, but in its presence 
and for its amusement, new games and new pleasures 
which will speedily become necessities. 

To such festivities as these the dramatic poet invites 
the assembled people. He undertakes to divert them, 
but the amusement which he supplies is one of which 
they would have been ignorant without his assistance. 
iEschylus relates to his fellow -citizens the victories of 
Salamis, the anxieties of Atossa, and the grief of Xerxes. 
He charms the people of Athens, but it is by raising 
them to a level with emotions and ideas which iEschylus 
alone could exalt to so high a point ; and he com- 
municates to the multitude impressions which they are 
capable of feeling, but which iEschylus alone is able 
to awaken. Such is the nature of dramatic poetry ; 
for the people it calls its creations into being, to the 
people it addresses itself ; but it is in order to ennoble 
their character, to extend and vivify their moral exist- 
ence, to reveal to them faculties which they uncon- 
sciously possess, and to procure for them enjoyments 
which they eagerly seize, but which they would not even 
seek after, if a sublime art did not reveal to them their 
existence by making them minister to their gratification. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 5 

And this work the dramatic poet must necessarily 
pursue ; he must elevate and civilise, as it were, the 
crowd that he summons to hear his performance. How 
can he act upon the assembled multitude, except by 
an appeal to the most general and elevated character- 
istics of their nature? It is only by going out of 
the narrow circle of common life and individual interests 
that the imagination becomes exalted and the heart 
enlarged, that pleasures become disinterested and the 
affections generous, and that men can sympathise in 
those common emotions the expression of which causes 
the theatre to resound with transports of delight. 
Religion has, therefore, universally been the source and 
furnished the primitive materials of dramatic art ; at its 
origin, it celebrated, among the Greeks, the adventures 
of Bacchus, and in northern Europe, the mysteries of 
Christ. This arises from the fact that, of all human 
affections, piety most powerfully unites men in common 
feelings, because it most thoroughly detaches them 
from themselves ; it is also less dependent for its 
development upon the progress of civilisation, as it is 
powerful and pure even in the most backward state of 
society. From its very beginning, dramatic poetry has 
invoked the aid of piety, because, of all the sentiments 
to which it could address itself, piety was the noblest 
and the most universal. 

Originating thus among the people and for the people, 
but destined to elevate them by affording them delight, 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 



the dramatic art speedily became, in every age and 
country, and by reason of this very characteristic of its 
nature, the favourite pleasure of the superior classes. 

This was its natural tendency ; and in this, also, it 
has encountered its most dangerous quicksands. More 
than once, allowing itself to be led astray by its' high 
fortune, dramatic art has lost or compromised its energy 
and liberty. When the superior classes can fully give 
themselves up to their position, they fall into the error 
or misfortune of isolating themselves from their fellows, 
and ceasing, as it were, to share in the general nature of 
man, and the public interests of society. Those universal 
feelings, natural ideas, and simple relationships which 
constitute the basis of humanity and of life, become 
changed and enervated in a social condition which 
consists entirely of exceptions and privileges. In such 
a state of society, conventionalisms take the place of 
realities, and morals become factitious and feeble. 
Human destiny ceases to be known under its most salient 
and general aspects. It has a thousand phases, it leads 
to a host of impressions and relations of which the higher 
classes are utterly ignorant, unless they are compelled to 
enter frequently into the public atmosphere. Dramatic 
art, when devoted to their pleasure, finds its domain 
greatly diminished and impoverished ; it is invaded by a 
sort of monotony ; events, passions, characters, all those 
natural treasures which it lays under contribution, no 
longer supply it with the same originality and wealth. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 7 

Its independence is imperilled as well as its variety and 
energy. The habits of elegant society, as well as those 
of the multitude, are characterised by their littlenesses, 
and it is much more capable of imposing these littlenesses 
as laws. It is stimulated by tastes rather than by 
necessities j it rarely introduces into its pleasures that 
serious and ingenuous disposition which abandons itself 
with transport to the impressions which it receives ; and 
it very frequently treats genius as a servant who is bound 
to please it, and not as a power that is capable of governing 
it by the enjoyments which it can supply. If the dramatic 
poet does not possess, in the suffrages of a larger and 
more simple public, the means of defending himself 
against the haughty taste of a select coterie, — if he 
cannot arm himself with public approbation, and rely 
for support upon the universal feelings which he has 
been able to arouse in all hearts, — his liberty is lost ; 
the caprices which he has attempted to satisfy will 
weigh upon him like a chain, from which he will be 
unable to free himself; talent, which is entitled to com- 
mand all, will find itself subject to the minority, and he 
who ought to guide the taste of the people, will become 
the slave of fashion. 

Such, then, is the nature of dramatic poetry that, in 
order to produce its most magical effects, and to pre- 
serve, during its growth, its liberty as well as its wealth, 
it must not separate from the people, to whom its 
earliest efforts were addressed. It languishes, if it is 



8 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

transplanted from the soil in which it first took root. 
Popular at its origin, it must continue to be national, 
and it must not cease to comprehend beneath its sway, 
and to charm with its productions, all classes that are 
capable of experiencing the emotions from which it 
derives its power. 

All ages of society, and all states of civilisation, are 
not equally favourable to calling the people to the aid 
of dramatic poetry, and ensuring its prosperity under 
their influence. It was the happy lot of Greece that the 
whole nation grew and developed itself together with 
literature and the arts, keeping always on a level with 
their progress, and acting as a competent judge of their 
glory. That same people of Athens, who had surrounded 
the chariot of Thespis, thronged to hear the master- 
pieces of Sophocles and Euripides ; and the most splendid 
triumphs of genius were always, in that city, popular 
festivals. So brilliant a moral equality has not presided 
over the destiny of modern nations ; their civilisation, 
displaying itself upon a far more extended scale, has 
undergone many more vicissitudes, and presented much 
less unity. During more than ten centuries, nothing 
was easy, general, or simple in our Europe. Religion, 
liberty, public order, literature, — nothing has been deve- 
loped among us without long-continued effort, in the 
midst of incessantly-renewed struggles, and under the 
most diversified influences. Amid this mighty and 
agitated chaos, dramatic poetry did not possess the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 9 

privilege of an easy and rapid career. It Avas not its 
fate to find, almost at its birth, a public at once 
homogeneous and various, the constituent members of 
which, both great and small, rich and poor, in fine, 
all classes of citizens, shoidd be equally eager for, and 
worthy of, its most brilliant solemnities. Neither epochs 
of great social disorder, nor periods of severe necessity, 
are times in which the masses can devote themselves 
with enthusiasm to the pleasures of the stage. Litera- 
ture prospers only when it is so intimately united with 
the tastes, habits, and entire existence of a people as 
to be regarded at once as an occupation and a festivity, 
an amusement and a necessity. Dramatic poetry, more 
than any other branch of literature, depends upon this 
deep-seated and general union of the arts with society. 
It is not satisfied with the tranquil pleasures of en- 
lightened approbation, but it requires the quick impulses 
of passion ; it does not seek men in leisure and retire- 
ment that it may furnish agreeable occupation for their 
hours of repose, but it requires men to hasten and 
throng around it. A certain degree of mental deve- 
lopment and simplicity, a certain community of ideas 
and habits between the different classes of society, 
greater ardour than fixity of imagination, greater 
movement of soul than of existence, a strongly-excited 
moral activity destitute of any imperious and deter- 
minate object, liberty of thought and repose of life — 
these are the circumstances of which dramatic poetry 



10 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

has need in order to shine with its full splendour. 
These circumstances never combined so completely, or 
so harmoniously, among modern peoples as among the 
Greeks. But wherever their leading characteristics have 
been found to exist, the drama has become elevated; 
and neither have men of genius been failing to the 
public, nor has the public proved wanting to men of 
genius. 

The reign of Elizabeth, in England, was one of those 
decisive epochs, so laboriously attained by modern 
peoples, which terminate the empire of force and 
inaugurate the reign of ideas. Original and fruitful 
epochs are these, when the nations flock to mental 
enjoyments as to a new kind of gratification, and when 
thought prepares, in the pleasures of youth, for the 
discharge of those functions which it will be called upon 
to exercise at a riper age. 

Scarcely recovered from the storms with which it had 
been ravaged by the alternate successes and reverses of 
the Red and White Roses, before it was again distracted 
and exhausted by the capricious tyranny of Henry VIII. 
and the malevolent despotism of Mary, England 
demanded of Elizabeth, at her accession, nothing but 
order and peace ; and this was precisely what Elizabeth 
was most disposed to bestow. Naturally prudent and 
reserved, though haughty and strong-willed, she had 
been taught by the stern necessities of her youth, 
never to compromise herself. When upon the throne, 



SHAKSPEAKE AND HIS TIMES. 11 

she maintained her independence by asking little of her 
people, and staked her policy upon rnnning no risks. 
Military glory could not seduce a distrustful woman. 
The sovereignty of the Netherlands, notwithstanding the 
efforts of the Dutch to induce her to accept it, did not 
tempt her wary ambition. She resignedly determined 
to make no attempt to recover Calais, or to retain 
Havre ; and all her desires of greatness, as well as all 
the cares of her government, were concentrated upon the 
direct interests of the country which she had to restore 
to repose and prosperity. 

Surprised at so novel a state of things, the people 
revelled in it with the intoxication of returning 
health. Civilisation, which had been destroyed or sus- 
pended by their dissensions, revived or progressed on 
every side. Industry brought wealth in its train, and 
notwithstanding the shackles imposed by the oppressive 
proceedings of the government, all the historians and 
all the documents of this period bear testimony to the 
rapid progress of popular luxury. The chronicler Harrison 
informs us that he had heard many old men express their 
surprise at " the multitude of chimneys lately erected, 
whereas in their young days there were not above two 
or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the 
realm (the religious houses and manor-places of their 
lords always excepted). 'Our fathers/ they said, 'lay 
full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only 
with a sheet, and a good round log under their heads 



12 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

instead of a bolster or pillow \ and if the good man of 
the house had, within seven years after his marriage, 
purchased a mattress or stock-bed, and thereto a sack 
of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to 
be as well lodged as the lord of the town/ "* But 
Elizabeth ascended the throne, and Shakspeare tells us 
that the busiest employment of the elves and fairies was 
to pinch " black and blue " those servants who neglected 
to cleanse the hearth-stone with due regularity. And 
Harrison informs us that the farmers' houses in his 
time were well supplied " with three or four feather- 
beds, as many coverlids and carpets of tapestry, beside 
a fair garnish of pewter on the cupboard, with a silver 
salt-cellar, a bowl for wine, and a dozen of spoons to 
furnish up the suit." f 

More than one generation will pass away before a 
people will have exhausted the novel enjoyments of such 
unusual good fortune. The reigns of both Elizabeth 
and her successor were scarcely sufficient to wear out 
that taste for comfort and repose which had been fostered 
by long-continued agitations ■ and that religious ardour, 
the explosion of which subsequently revealed the exist- 
ence of new forces which had lain hid in the bosom of 
society during the tranquillity of these two reigns, was 
then spreading itself silently among the masses, with- 
out as yet giving birth to any general and decisive 
movement. 

* Harrison's Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicles, 
vol. i., p. 188. f Ibid., p. 189. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 1 3 

The Reformation, though treated with hostility by the 
great sovereigns of the Continent, had received from 
Henry VIII. enough encouragement and support to 
lessen its ambition and retard its progress for a time. 
The yoke of Home had been cast off, and monastic life 
abolished. By thus granting satisfaction to the primary 
desires of the age, and turning the first blows of the 
Reformation to the advantage of material interests, 
Henry VIII. deterred many minds from inquiring more 
thoroughly into the purely theological dogmas of 
Catholicism, which no longer shocked them by the 
exhibition of its most obnoxious abuses. Faith, it is 
true, was in a tottering state, and could no longer cling 
firmly to disputed doctrines. These doctrines, therefore, 
were fated one day to fall ; but the day of their rejection 
was delayed. At a time when the Catholic defender of 
the real presence was burnt at the stake for maintaining 
the supremacy of the Pope, and the Reformer who 
denied the papal supremacy suffered the same punish- 
ment for refusing to admit the real presence, many 
minds necessarily remained in suspense. Neither of the 
two conflicting opinions afforded to cowardice, which is 
so plentifully manifested in difficult times, the refuge of a 
victorious party. The dogma of political obedience 
was the only one which docile consciences could adopt 
with any zeal ; and among the sincere adherents of 
either party, the hopes of triumph which so singular a 
position allowed each to entertain, still kept in activity 



14 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

those timidly courageous individuals whom tyranny is 
obliged to pursue into their last retrenchments, in order 
to force them to offer any resistance. 

The vicissitudes experienced by the religious esta- 
blishment of England, during the reigns of Edward VI. 
and Mary, tended to maintain this disposition. Anxiety 
for martyrdom had not time, in either party, to nourish 
and diffuse itself; and though the party of the Reform- 
ation, — which was already more influential over the 
public mind, more persevering in its exertions, and 
more remarkable for the number and courage of its 
martyrs, — was proceeding evidently towards a final 
victory, yet the success which it had obtained at the 
accession of Elizabeth had supplied it rather with leisure 
to prepare for new conflicts, than with power to engage 
in them at once, and to render them decisive. 

Though connected, by her position, with the doctrines 
of the Reformers, Elizabeth had, in common with the 
Catholic clergy, a strong taste for pomp and authority. 
Her first regulations in regard to religious matters 
were, consequently, of such a character that most of the 
Catholics felt no repugnance to attend the divine 
worship with which the Reformers were satisfied; and 
the establishment of the Anglican Church, which was 
entrusted to the hands of the existing clergy, met with 
very little resistance, and at the same time very little 
encouragement, from the general body of ecclesiastics. 
Religion continued to be regarded, by a great many 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 15 

persons, as a merely political matter. The disputes of 
England with the Court of Rome and with Spain, a few 
internal conspiracies and the severities with which they 
were repressed, successively created new causes for 
animosity between the two parties. Religious interest, 
however, had so little influence over public feeling, that, 
in 1569, Elizabeth, the daughter of the Reformation, 
but far more precious to her people as the pledge of 
public repose and prosperity, found most of her Catholic 
subjects zealous to assist her to crush the Catholic 
rebellion of a part of the north of England. 

Eor still stronger reasons, they willingly agreed to 
that joyous forgetfulness of all great subjects of dispute 
which Elizabeth encouraged them to entertain. It is 
true that, in the depths of the masses of the people, 
the Reformation, which had been flattered, but not 
satisfied, murmured indistinctly; and even that voice 
which was destined soon to shake all England to its 
centre, was heard gradually rising to utterance. But 
amid that movement of youthful vigour, which had, as 
it were, carried away the whole nation, the stern 
severity of the Reformers was still regarded as importu- 
nate, and those who had bestowed on it a passing 
glance quickly turned their eyes in some more agreeable 
direction ; so that the accents of Puritanism, united with 
those of liberty, were repressed without effort by a power 
under whose protection the people had too recently been 
sheltered to entertain any great fear of its encroachments. 



16 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

No periods are perhaps more favourable to the fertility 
and originality of mental productions than those times 
at which a nation already free, but still ignorant 
of its own position, ingenuously enjoys what it possesses 
without perceiving in what it is deficient ■ times 
full of ardour, but very easy to please, before rights 
have been narrowly denned, powers discussed, or re- 
strictions agreed upon. The government and the 
public, proceeding in their course undisturbed by fears 
or scruples, exist together without any distrustful 
observance of each other, and even come into commu- 
nication but rarely. If, on the one side, power is 
unlimited, on the other, liberty will be great ; for both 
parties will be ignorant of those general forms, those 
innumerable and minute duties to which actions and 
minds are more or less subjected by a scientifically 
constructed despotism, and even by a well-regulated 
liberty. Thus it was that the age of Richelieu and 
Louis XIV. consciously possessed that amount of liberty 
which has furnished us with a literature and a drama. 
At that period of our history, when even the name of 
public liberties seemed to have been forgotten, and when 
a feeling of the dignity of man served as the basis 
neither of the institutions of the country nor of the acts 
of the government, the dignity of individual positions 
still existed wherever power had not yet found it neces- 
sary to crush it. Beside the forms of servility, we meet 
with forms, and sometimes even with manifestations, of 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 17 

independence. The grand seigneur, though submissive 
and adoring as a courtier, could nevertheless proudly 
remember on certain occasions that he was a gentleman. 
Corneille the citizen could find no terms sufficiently 
humble to express his gratitude to, and dependence upon, 
Cardinal Richelieu; but Corneille the poet disdained 
the authority which assumed to prescribe rules for the 
guidance of his genius, and defended, against the 
literary pretensions of an absolute minister, those 
?•? secret means of pleasing which he might have found 
in his art." In fine, men of vigorous mind evaded in a 
thousand ways the yoke of a still incomplete or inexpe- 
rienced despotism ; and the imagination soared freely 
in every direction within the range of its flight. 

In England, during the reign of Elizabeth the 
supreme power, though far more irregular and less 
skilfully organised than it was in France under 
Louis XIV., had to treat with much more deeply- 
rooted principles of liberty. It would be a mistake 
to measure the despotism of Elizabeth by the speeches 
of her flatterers, or even by the acts of her government. 
In her still young and inexperienced Court, the language 
of adulation far exceeded the servility of the adulator * 
and in the country, in which ancient institutions had 
by no means perished, the government was far from 
exercising universal sway. In the counties and chief 
towns, an independent administration maintained habits 
and instincts of liberty. The Queen imposed silence 



18 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

upon the Commons when they pressed her to appoint a 
successor, or to grant some article of religious liberty. 
But the Commons had met, and spoken ; and the 
Queen, notwithstanding the haughtiness of her refusal, 
took great care to give no cause for complaints that 
might have increased the authority of their words. 
Despotism and liberty, thus avoiding a meeting instead 
of seeking a battle, manifested themselves without feel- 
ing any hatred for each other, with that simplicity of 
action which prevents those collisions and banishes those 
bitter feelings which are occasioned on both sides by 
continual resistance. A Puritan had had his right hand 
cut off as a punishment for having written a tract 
against the proposed marriage of Elizabeth to the Duke 
of Anjou ; and immediately after the sentence had been 
executed, he waved his hat with his left hand, and 
shouted, " God save the Queen ! " When loyalty is 
thus deeply rooted in the heart of a man exposed to 
such sufferings for the cause of liberty, liberty in general 
must necessarily think that it has no great reason for 
complaint. 

This period, then, was deficient in none of the advan- 
tages which it was capable of desiring. There was 
nothing to prevent the minds of the people from 
indulging freely in all the intoxication natural to thought 
when it has reached the age of development — an age of 
follies and miracles, when the imagination revels in its 
most puerile as well as in its noblest manifestations. 



SHAKSPEARE AXD HIS TIMES. 19 

Extravagantly luxurious festivities, splendour of dress, 
addiction to gallantry, ardent conformity to fashion, and 
sacrifices to favour, employed the wealth and leisure of 
the courtiers of Elizabeth. More enthusiastic tempera- 
ments went to distant lands in search of adventures, 
which, in addition to the hope of fortune, offered them 
the livelier pleasure of perilous encounters. Sir Erancis 
Drake sailed forth as a corsair, and volunteers thronged 
on board his ship ; Sir Walter Raleigh announced a 
distant expedition, and scions of noble houses sold their 
goods to join his crew. Spontaneous ventures and 
patriotic enterprises followed each other in almost daily 
succession ; and, far from becoming exhausted by this 
continual movement, the minds of men received from it 
fresh vigour and impulse. Thought claimed its share 
in the supply of pleasures, and became at the same time 
.the sustenance of the most serious passions. "Whilst 
the crowd hurried on ah sides into the numerous 
theatres which had been erected, the Puritan, in his 
solitary meditations, burned with indignation against 
these pomps of Belial, and this sacrilegious employment 
of man, the image of God upon earth. Poetic ardour 
and religious asperity, literary quarrels and theological 
controversies, taste for festivities and fanaticism for 
austerities, philosophy and criticism, sermons, pamphlets, 
and epigrams, appeared simultaneously, and jostled each 
other in admired confusion. Amid this natural and 
fantastic conflict of opposite elements, the power of 



20 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

opinion, the feeling and habit of liberty, were silently 
in process of formation : two forces, brilliant at their 
first appearance and imposing in their progress, the first- 
fruits of which belong to any skilful government that is 
able to use them, but the maturity of which is terrible 
to any imprudent government that may attempt to 
reduce them to servitude. The impulse which has con- 
stituted the glory of a reign, may speedily become the 
fever which will precipitate a people into revolution. 
In the days of Elizabeth, the movement of the public 
mind summoned England only to festivities; and 
dramatic poetry sprang into full being under the 
master-hand of Shakspeare. 

Who would not delight to go to the fountain-head of 
the first inspirations of an original genius ; to penetrate 
into the secret of the causes which guided his nascent 
powers ; to follow him step by step in his progress ; 
and, in a word, to behold the whole inner life of a man 
who, after having in his own country opened to dramatic 
poetry the road which she has never since quitted, 
still reigns pre-eminent, and with almost undivided 
sway? Unfortunately, Shakspeare is one of those 
superior men whose life was but little noticed by his 
contemporaries, and it has therefore remained obscure to 
succeeding generations. A few civil registers in which 
traces of the existence of his family have been preserved, 
a few traditions connected with his name in the district 
in which he was born, and the splendid productions of 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 21 

liis own genius, are the only means which we possess of 
supplying the deficiencies of his personal history. 

The family of Shakspeare resided at Stratford-upon- 
Avon, in the county of Warwick. His father, John 
Shakspeare, derived the greater part of his income, as it 
would appear, from his business as a wool-stapler. It 
is probable, however, that he connected with this several 
other branches of trade ; for in some anecdotes collected 
at Stratford, — fifty years, it is true, after Shakspeare' s 
death, — Aubrey^ represents him to have been the son of 
a butcher. At such a distance of time, recollections 
handed down through two or three generations might 
have become somewhat confused in the memory of 
Shakspeare's fellow-townsmen ; but professions were not 
then so distinct or so numerous as they have become in 
our times, and nothing could have been less strange, at 
. this period, and especially in a small town, than the union 
of the various trades connected with the sale of cattle. 
However this may be, Shakspeare's family belonged to 
that bourgeoisie which early acquired so much import- 
ance in England. His great-great-grandfather had 
received from Henry VII., " for his valiant and faithful 
services," a grant of land in Warwickshire. His father 
filled the office of high bailiff of Stratford in the year 
1569; but, ten years afterwards, it would seem that he 
experienced a reverse of fortune, for, in 1579, we find 

* A writer who lived about fifty years after Shakspeare, and who made a 
collection of anecdotes and traditions regarding the time in which he flourished, 



22 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

from the registers of Stratford that two aldermen, of whom 
John Shakspeare was one, were exempted from paying 
a small tax paid by their colleagues. In 1586, he was 
removed from his office of alderman, the duties of which 
he had for some time ceased to perform. Other causes 
besides his poverty may have led to his removal. It 
has been said that Shakspeare was a Catholic ; and it 
appears at least to be certain that such was the faith of 
his father. In the year 1 7 7 0, a bricklayer, while mending 
the roof of the house in which Shakspeare was born, found, 
between the rafters and the tiling, a manuscript which 
had doubtless been hidden there in a time of perse- 
cution, and which contained a profession of the Catholic 
faith in fourteen articles, all of which began with the 
words : "I, John Shakspeare.'' The ever-increasing 
power of the doctrines of the Reformation had perhaps 
rendered the duties of an alderman more difficult of 
performance to a Catholic who, as he advanced in age, 
may also have become more scrupulous in the observance 
of the rules of his faith. 

William Shakspeare was born on the 23rd of April, 
1564. He was the third or fourth of the nine, ten, or 
perhaps eleven children who constituted the family of 
John. William, there is reason to believe, was the first 
son, the eldest of his father's hopes. Prosperity and 
respectability undoubtedly belonged, at this period, to 
his family, as its head became chief magistrate of his 
native town five years afterwards. We may therefore 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 23 

admit that Shakspeare's education, in his earlier years, 
was in conformity with the circumstances of his father ; 
and when a change in his fortunes, from whatever cause 
it may have arisen, occasioned an interruption of his 
studies, he had probably acquired those first elements 
of a liberal education which are quite sufficient to free 
the mind of a superior man from the awkwardness of 
ignorance, and to put him in possession of those forms 
which he will need for the suitable expression of his 
thoughts. This is more than enough to explain how 
it was that Shakspeare was deficient in those acquire- 
ments which constitute a good education, although he 
possessed the elegance which is its usual accompa- 
niment. 

Shakspeare was scarcely fifteen years old when he 
was taken from school to assist his impoverished father 
in his business. It was then that, according to Aubrey, 
William exercised the sanguinary functions of a butcher's 
assistant. This supposition is considered revolting by 
commentators on the poet at the present day; but a 
circumstance related by Aubrey does not permit us to 
doubt its correctness, and at the same time reveals to 
us that his young imagination was already incapable of 
subjecting itself to so vile an employment, without 
connecting therewith some ennobling idea or sentiment. 
"When he killed a calf," said the people of the neigh- 
bourhood to Aubrey, " he would do it in a high style, 
and make a speech." Who cannot catch a glimpse, in 



24 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

this story, of the tragic poet inspired by the sight of 
death, even in an animal, and striving to render it 
imposing or pathetic ? Who cannot picture to himself 
the scholar of -thirteen or fourteen years of age, with his 
head full of his first literary attainments, and his mind 
impressed, perhaps, by some theatrical performance, 
elevating, in poetic transport, the animal about to fall 
beneath his axe to the dignity of a victim, or, perhaps 
even, to that of a tyrant ? 

In the year 1576, the brilliant Leicester celebrated 
the visit of Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth, by festivities 
whose extraordinary magnificence is attested by all the 
chronicles of the time. Shakspeare was then twelve 
years old, and Kenilworth is only a few miles from 
Stratford. It is difficult to doubt that the family of the 
young poet participated, with all the population of the 
surrounding country, in the pleasure and admiration 
excited by these pompous spectacles. What an impulse 
would the imagination of Shakspeare not fail to receive ! 
Nevertheless, the early years of the poet have transmitted 
to us, as the only sign of those singularities which may 
announce the presence of genius, the anecdote which I 
have just related ; and the information which we possess 
regarding the amusements of his youth, gives no hint 
whatever of the tastes and pleasures of a literary life. 

We live in times of civilisation and progress, when 
everything has its place and ride, — and when the destiny 
of every individual is determined by circumstances more 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 25 

or less imperious, but which manifest themselves at an 
early period. A poet begins by being a poet ; lie who is 
to become one, knows it almost from infancy ; poetry 
has been familiar to his earliest contemplation ; it may 
have been his first taste, his first passion when the 
movement of the passions awakened in his heart. 
The young man has expressed in verse that which 
he does not yet feel; and when feeling truly arises 
within him, his first thought will be to express it in 
verse. Poetry has become the object of his existence ; 
an object as important as any other — a career in which 
he may obtain fortune as well as glory, and which may 
afford an opening to the serious ideas of his future life, 
as well as to the capricious sallies of his youth. In so 
advanced a state of society, a man cannot be long 
ignorant, or spend much time in search of his own 
powers • an easy way presents itself to the view of that 
youthful ardour which would probably wander far astray 
before finding the direction best suited to it; those 
forces and passions from which talent will issue soon 
learn the secret of their destiny ; and, summed up in 
speeches, images, and harmonious cadences, the illusions 
of desire, the chimseras of hope, and sometimes even 
the bitterness of disappointment, are exhaled without 
difficulty in the precocious essays of the young man. 

In times when life is difficult and manners coarse, 
this is rarely the case in regard to the poet, who is 
formed by nature alone. Nothing reveals him so 



26 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

speedily to himself ; he must have felt much before he 
can think he has anything to portray ; his first powers 
will be spent in action, — in such irregular action as may 
be provoked by the impatience of his desires, — in violent 
action, if any obstacle intervene between himself and 
the success with which his fiery imagination has pro- 
mised to crown him. In vain has fate bestowed on him 
the noblest gifts ; he can employ them only upon the 
single object with which he is acquainted. Heaven only 
knows what triumphs he will achieve by his eloquence, 
in what projects and for what advantages he will display 
the riches of his inventive faculty, among what equals 
his talents will raise him to the first rank, and of what 
society the vivacity of his mind will render him the 
amusement and the idol ! Alas for this melancholy 
subjection of man to the external world ! Gifted with 
useless power if his horizon be less extensive than his 
capacity of vision, he sees only that which lies around 
him ; and heaven, which has bestowed treasures upon 
him with such lavish munificence, has done nothing 
for him if it does not place him in circumstances which 
may reveal them to his gaze. This revelation commonly 
arises from misfortune ; when the world fails the 
superior man, he falls back upon himself, and becomes 
aware of his own resources ; when necessity presses 
him, he collects his powers; and it is frequently 
through having lost the faculty of grovelling upon 
earth, that genius and virtue rise in triumph to the skies. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 27 

Neither the occupations in which Shakspeare seemed 
destined to spend his life, nor the amusements and 
companions of his leisure hours, afforded him any 
materials adapted to affect and absorb that imagination, 
the power of which had begun to agitate his being. 
Rushing into all the excitements which he met on his 
way, because nothing could satisfy him, the youth of 
the poet gave admission to pleasure, under whatever 
form it presented itself. A tradition of the banks of 
the Avon, which is in strict accordance with probability, 
gives us reason to suppose that he had only a choice of 
the most vulgar diversions. The anecdote is still related, 
it is said, by the men of Stratford and of Bidford, a 
neighbouring village, renowned in past ages for the 
excellence of its beer, and also, it is added, for the 
unquenchable thirst of its inhabitants. 
• The population of the neighbourhood of Bidford was 
divided into two classes, known by the names of Topers 
and flippers. These fraternities were in the habit of 
challenging to drinking-bouts all those who, in the 
surrounding country, took credit to themselves for any 
merit of this kind. The youth of Stratford, when 
challenged in its turn, valiantly accepted the defiance ; 
and Shakspeare, who, we are assured, was no less a 
connoisseur in beer than Falstaff in Canary sack, formed 
a part of the joyous band from which, doubtless, he 
rarely separated. But their strength was not equal to 
their courage. On arriving at the place of meeting, the 



28 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

champions of Stratford found that the Topers had set 
out for a neighbouring fair. The Sippers, who, to 
all appearance, were less formidable opponents, remained 
alone, and proposed to try the fortune of war. The offer 
was accepted ; but, in a short time, the Stratford party 
were thoroughly knocked up, and reduced to the sad 
necessity of employing their little remaining reason in 
using their legs as they best might to effect a retreat. 
The operation was difficult, and soon became impossible. 
They had hardly gone a mile, when their strength failed, 
and the whole party bivouacked for the night under a 
crab-tree, which, travellers tell us, is still standing on 
the road from Stratford to Bidford, and is known by 
the name of Shakspeare's Tree. On the following morn- 
ing, his comrades, refreshed and invigorated by rest and 
sleep, endeavoured to induce him to return with them to 
avenge the affront they had received on the previous 
evening ; but Shakspeare refused to go back, and, look- 
ing round on the villages which were to be seen from 
the point on which he stood, exclaimed, " No, I have 
had enough drinking with — 

" Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton, 
Dudging* Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford." + 

This conclusion of the adventure gives rise to the 
presumption that debauchery had less share than gaiety 

* Sulky, stubborn, in dudgeon. ■ 
+ Several of these villages still retain the reputation ascribed to them by 
Shakspeare in this quatrain. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 29 

in these excursions of Shakspeare's youth, and that 
verse, if not poetry, was already the natural language in 
which he gave expression to his feelings. Tradition has 
handed down to us some other impromptus of the same 
kind, but they are connected with anecdotes of less 
significance. All that we know, however, combines to 
portray to us his merry and quick imagination disport- 
ing itself with complacency amid the uncouth objects of 
his amusements ; and we behold the future friend of 
Lord Southampton charming the rustic inhabitants of 
the banks of the Avon with that graceful animation, that 
joyous serenity of temper, and that benevolent openness 
of character which everywhere found or made for itself 
pleasures and friends. 

Meanwhile, amidst these grotesque follies, a serious 
event took place ; and that was the marriage of Shak- 
speare. At the time when he contracted this important 
engagement, Shakspeare was not more than eighteen 
years of age, for his eldest daughter came into the world 
just a month after he had completed his nineteenth 
year. What motive led him thus early to undertake 
responsibilities which he seemed as yet but ill calculated 
to discharge ? Anne Hathaway, his wife, the daughter 
of a farmer, and therefore a little inferior to him in rank, 
was eight years older than himself. She may perhaps 
have surpassed him in fortune, or perhaps the parents of 
the poet were anxious to attach him, by an advantageous 
marriage, to some settled occupation ; it does not 



30 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

appear, however, that Shakspeare's marriage added to 
his worldly prosperity; the contrary, indeed, was the 
case. Perhaps love led to the union of the young 
couple ; perhaps even it constrained their families to 
hasten the legitimate accomplishment of their wishes. 
However this may be, in less than two years after the 
birth of Susanna, the first fruit of their marriage, twins 
were born, a boy and a girl — the last proof of a conjugal 
intimacy which had at first announced itself under such 
favourable appearances. According to some indications, 
which are in truth doubtful and obscure, the wife of 
Shakspeare, who, as we shall presently see, was remem- 
bered, or rather forgotten, in a strange manner in his 
will, was only rarely present to his thoughts in the after 
part of his life ; and this irrevocable engagement, so 
hastily contracted, seems to have been one of the most 
fleeting fancies of his youth. 

Among the facts and conjectures which have been 
stored up in reference to this period of Shakspeare's life, 
we must place the tradition related by Aubrey, which 
represents him as having for some time filled the office 
of schoolmaster ; though the truth of this anecdote is 
denied by nearly all his biographers. Some writers, 
basing their supposition upon passages contained in his 
works, are inclined to believe that the poet of Elizabeth 
attempted to subject the powers of his mind to the" 
routine duties of a lawyer's office. According to their 
conjectures, the new duties of paternity compelled him 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 31 



to seek this employment for his talents, whereas Aubrey 
places his brief experience as a schoolmaster before his 
marriage. Nothing is, however, certain or important 
on these points. Of one thing only we may speak with 
certainty, and that is, the constant disposition of the 
husband of Anne Hathaway to vary, by diversions of 
every kind, whatever occupations might be imposed 
upon him by necessity. The occurrence which forced 
Shakspeare to leave Stratford, and gave to England her 
greatest poet, proves that his position as the father of a 
family had not effected any great alteration in the 
irregularity of his habits as a young man. 

Jealous preservers of their game, like all gentlemen 
who are not engaged in war, the possessors of parks 
were continually under the necessity of defending them 
against invasions, which, in places so open and unpro- 
tected, were as frequent as they were easy. Danger 
does not always diminish temptation, but frequently 
even makes it appear less illegitimate. A band of 
poachers carried on their depredations in the neighbour- 
hood of Stratford, and Shakspeare, who was eminently 
sociable, never refused to engage in anything that was 
done in common. He was caught in the park of Sir 
Thomas Lucy, locked up in the keeper's lodge, where 
he passed the night in no very agreeable manner, and 
taken the next morning before Sir Thomas, in whose 
presence, according to all appearance, he did not 
extenuate his fault by submission and repentance. 



32 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

Shakspeare seems to have retained too merry a recollec- 
tion of this circumstance of his life, for us to suppose 
that it caused him anything more than amusement. 
Sir Thomas Lucy, whom he brought on the stage some 
years afterwards as Justice Shallow, had doubtless taken 
hold of his imagination less as an object of ill-humour, 
than as a pleasant caricature. Whether, in their inter- 
view, Shakspeare exercised the vivacity of his wit at the 
expense of his powerful adversary, and consoled himself 
by his success for his ill-luck, or whether he enjoyed the 
scene with that mocking pride which is so amusing to the 
person who displays it, and so offensive to him who has 
to submit to it, we do not know, but such a supposition 
is in itself very probable ; and the scene in the " Second 
Part of Henry IV.," in which Falstaff treats with witty 
insolence Justice Shallow, who threatens to prosecute him 
for just such an offence, evidently conveys to us some of 
the repartees of the young poacher. They were not 
intended, and could not have availed, to mollify the 
resentment of Sir Thomas. In whatever manner he may 
have vented his wrath upon the offender who was then 
in his power, the necessity for vengeance had become 
reciprocal. Shakspeare composed, and posted on Sir 
Thomas's gates, a ballad which was quite bad enough 
to thoroughly divert the public, to whom he then looked 
for triumph, and to excite to the last degree the anger 
of the man whose name it held up to popular ridicule. 
A criminal prosecution was commenced against the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 33 

young man with such violence, that he found it neces- 
sary to provide for his own safety ; so he left his family, 
and travelled to London in search of an asylum and 
the means of subsistence. 

Some of Shakspeare's biographers have supposed that 
pecuniary difficulties may have occasioned this flight 
from home. Aubrey attributes it only to his desire to 
find in London some opportunity for the display of his 
talent. But whatever may have been the ulterior results 
of the poet's adventure with Sir Thomas Lucy, the fact 
itself cannot be called in question. Shakspeare seems to 
have taken particular pains to state it. Of all Falstaff's 
follies, the only one for which he is not punished is 
having "beaten the men and killed the deer" of Shallow 
— an exploit in far greater conformity to the idea which 
Shakspeare may have retained of his own youth, than 
to the description he has given us of the old knight, who 
is generally vanquished instead of victorious. All the 
advantage, however, remains with Falstaff in this affair, 
and Shallow, who is so clearly designated by the arms 
of the Lucy family, is nowhere so ridiculous as in the 
scene in which he vents his wrath against the robber 
of his game. The poet, indeed, takes no further notice 
of him, but leaves him, when he gets out of Falstaff's 
hands, as if he had obtained from him all that he 
intended to extract. The friendly care and complacency 
with which Shakspeare reproduces in the piece, in refer- 
ence to Shallow's armorial bearings, the play upon words 



34 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES, 

which formed the basis of his ballad against Sir Thomas 
Lucy, have quite the appearance of a tender recollection; 
and assuredly, few historical anecdotes can produce, 
in favour of their authenticity, such conclusive moral 
evidence. 

It is unfortunate that we cannot say as much with 
regard to the employment of the early part of Shak- 
speare's residence in London, to the circumstances which 
led to his connexion with the stage, and to the part 
which consciousness of his talent may have had in 
forming the resolution which directed the flight of his 
genius. But even the best authenticated traditions on 
these points are deficient alike in probability and in 
proofs. That craving after astonishment, which is the 
source of marvellous beliefs, and which will almost 
always make our faith incline towards the stranger of 
two narratives, disposes us in general to seek, for all 
important events, an accidental cause in what we call 
chance. We then admire, with singular delight, the 
miraculous shrewdness of that chance which we suppose 
to be blind, because we are blind ourselves ; and our 
imagination rejoices in the idea of an unreasoning force 
presiding over the destiny of a man of genius. Thus, 
according to the most accredited tradition, misery alone 
determined the choice of Shakspeare's first occupation 
in London, and the care of holding horses at the door 
of the theatre was his first connexion with the stage — his 
first step towards dramatic life. But the extraordinary 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 35 

man is always revealed by some outward sign : such 
was the gracefulness manifested by the new-comer in 
his humble duties, that soon no one would trust his 
horse into other hands than those of William Shakspeare 
or his assistants. Extending his business, this favoured 
servant of the public hired boys to wait under his 
inspection, who, when Will Skakspeare was summoned, 
were immediately to present themselves, as they were 
certain to be preferred when they declared themselves 
" Shakspeare's boys" — a title which, it is said, was long- 
retained by the waiters that held horses at the doors of 
the theatres. 

Such is the anecdote related by Johnson, who had it, 
he said, from Pope, to whom it was communicated by 
Rowe. Nevertheless Rowe, Shakspeare's first biogra- 
pher, has not mentioned it in his own narrative, and 
Johnson's authority is supported only by Cibber's 
If Lives of the Poets," — a work to which Gibber con- 
tributed nothing but his name, and of which one of 
Johnson's own amanuenses was almost the sole author. 

Another tradition, which had been preserved among 
the actors of the time, represents Shakspeare to us as 
filling at first the lowest position in the theatrical 
hierarchy, namely, that of call-boy, whose duty it was 
to summon the actors, when their time came to appear 
upon the stage. Such, in fact, would have been the 
gradual promotion by which the horse-holder might 
have raised himself to the honour of admission behind 

D 2 



36 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

the scenes. But, when turning his ideas to the theatre, 
is it likely that Shakspeare would have stopped short at 
the door ? At the time of his arrival in London, in the 
year 1584 or 15S5, he had a natural protector at the 
Blackfriars Theatre; for Greene, his townsman, and 
probably his relative, figured there as an actor of some 
reputation, and also as the author of several comedies. 
According to Aubrey, it was with a positive intention 
to devote himself to the stage that Shakspeare came to 
London ; and even if Greene's influence had not been 
able to secure his reception in a higher character than 
that of call-boy, it is easy to understand the rapid 
strides with which a superior man reaches the summit 
of any career into which he has once obtained admission. 
But it would be more difficult to conceive that, with 
Greene's example and protection, a theatrical career, or 
at least a desire to try his powers as an actor, would 
not have been Shakspeare's first ambition. The time 
had come when mental ambitions were kindling on 
every side ; and dramatic poetry, which had long been 
numbered among the national pleasures, had at length 
acquired in England that importance which calls for the 
production of masterpieces. 

Nowhere on the Continent has a taste for poetry been 
so constant and popular as in Great Britain. Germany 
has had her Minnesingers, France her Troubadours and 
Trouveres ; but these graceful apparitions of nascent 
poetry rapidly ascended to the superior regions of social 



SHAKSPEARE AXD HIS TIMES. 37 

order, and vanished before long. The English minstrels 
are visible, throughout the history of their country, in a 
position which has been more or less brilliant according 
to circumstances, but which has always been recognised 
by society, established by its acts, and determined by 
its rules. They appear as a regularly organised corpo- 
ration, with its special business, influence, and rights, 
penetrating into all ranks of the nation, and associating 
in the diversions of the people as well as in the festivities 
of their chiefs. Heirs of the Breton bards and the 
Scandinavian Scalds, with whom they are incessantlv 
confounded by English writers of the Middle Ages, the 
minstrels of old England retained for a considerable 
length of time a portion of the authority of their prede- 
cessors. When afterwards subjugated, and quickly 
deserted, Great Britain did not, like Gaul, receive an 
universal and profound impression of Roman civilisation. 
The Britons disappeared or retired before the Saxons 
and Angles; after this period, the conquest of the Saxons 
by the Danes, and of the united Danes and Saxons by 
the Xormans, only commingled upon the soil a number 
of peoples of common origin, of analogous habits, and 
almost equally barbarous character. The vanquished 
were oppressed, but they had not to humiliate their 
weakness before the brutal manners of their masters ; 
and the victors were not compelled to submit by degrees 
to the rule of the more polished manners of their new 
subjects. x\mong a nation so homogeneous, and 



38 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

throughout the vicissitudes of its destiny, even Chris- 
tianity did not perform the part which devolved upon 
it elsewhere. On adopting the faith of Saint Remi, the 
Franks found in Gaul a Roman clergy, wealthy and 
influential, who necessarily undertook to modify the 
institutions, ideas, and manner of life, as well as the 
religious belief of the conquerors. The Christian clergy 
of the Saxons were themselves Saxons, long as uncouth 
and barbarous as the members of their flocks, but never 
estranged from, or indifferent to, their feelings and 
recollections. Thus the young civilisation of the North 
grew up, in England, in all the simplicity and energy of 
its nature, and in complete independence of the 
borrowed forms and foreign sap which it elsewhere 
received from the old civilisation of the South. This 
important fact, which perhaps determined the course of 
political institutions in England, could not fail to exercise 
great influence over the character and development of 
her poetry also. 

A nation that proceeds in such strict conformity to its 
first impulse, and never ceases to belong entirely to 
itself, naturally regards itself with looks of complacency. 
The feeling of property attaches, in its view, to all that 
affects it, and the joy of pride to all that it produces. 
Its poets, when inspired to relate to it its own deeds, 
and describe its own customs, are certain of never 
meeting with an ear that will not listen, or a heart that 
will not respond ; their art is at once the charm of the 



SHAKSPEARE AXD HIS TIMES. 39 

lower classes of society, and the honour of the most 
exalted ranks. More than in any other country, poetry 
is united Trith important events in the ancient history of 
England. It introduced Alfred into the tents of the 
Danish leaders ; four centuries before, it had enabled 
the Saxon Bardulph to penetrate into the city of York, 
in which the Britons held his brother Colgrim besieged ; 
sixty years later, it accompanied Anlaf, king of the 
Danes, into the camp of Atheist an ; and, in the twelfth 
century, it achieved the honour of effecting the deliver- 
ance of Richard Cceur-de-Lion. These old narratives, 
and a host of others, however doubtful they may be 
supposed, prove at least how present to the imagination 
of the people were the art and profession of the minstrel 
A fact of more modern date fully attests the power which 
these popular poets long exercised over the multitude : 
Hugh, first Earl of Chester, had decreed, in the founda- 
tion-deed of the Abbev of St. Werburgh, that the fair 
of Chester should be, during its whole duration, a place 
of asylum for criminals, excepting in the case of crimes 
committed in the fair itself. In the year 1212, during 
the reign of King John, and at the time of this fair, 
Ranulph, last Earl of Chester, travelling into Wales, was 
attacked by the Welsh, and compelled to retire to his 
castle of Rothelan, in which they besieged him. He 
succeeded in informing Roger, or John de Lacy, the 
constable of Chester, of his position ; this nobleman 
interested the minstrels who had come to the fair in the 



40 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

cause of the Earl j and they so powerfully excited, with 
their songs, the multitude of outlawed persons then 
collected at Chester beneath the safeguard of the 
privilege of St. Werburgh, that they marched forth, 
under the command of young Hugh Dutton, the steward 
of Lord de Lacy, to deliver the Earl from his perilous 
situation. It was not necessary to come to blows, for 
the Welsh, when they beheld the approach of this troop, 
thought it was an army, and raised the siege ; and the 
grateful Ranulph immediately granted, to the minstrels 
of the county of Chester, various privileges, which they 
were, to enjoy under the protection of the Lacy family, 
who afterwards transferred this patronage to the Duttons 
and their descendants.* 

Nor do the chronicles alone bear witness to the 
number and popularity of the minstrels ; from time to 
time they are mentioned in the acts of the legislature. 
In 1315, during the reign of Edward II., the Royal 
Council, being desirous to suppress vagabondage, forbade 
all persons, " except minstrels," to stop at the houses of 
prelates, earls, and barons, to eat and drink ; nor might 
there enter, on each day, into such houses, " more than 
three or four minstrels of honour," unless the proprietor 

1 During the reign of Elizabeth, when fallen from their ancient splendour, 
but still of such importance that the law which would no longer protect them 
was obliged to pay attention to them, the minstrels were, by an act , of 
Parliament, classed in the same category with beggars and vagabonds; but 
an exception was made in favour of those protected by the Dutton family, and 
they continued freely to exercise their profession and privileges, in honourable 
remembrance of the service by which they had gained them. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 41 

himself invited a greater number. Into the abodes of 
persons of humbler rank, even minstrels might not enter 
unless they were invited * and they must then content 
themselves " with eating and drinking, and with such 
courtesy " as it should please the master of the house to 
add thereto. In 1316, whilst Edward was celebrating 
the festival of Whitsuntide, at Westminster, with his 
peers, a woman, H dressed in the manner of minstrels," 
and mounted on a large horse, caparisoned " according 
to the custom of minstrels/' entered the banqueting- 
hall, rode round the tables, laid a letter before the king, 
and, quickly turning her horse, went away with a salute 
to the company. The letter displeased the king, whom 
it blamed for having lavished liberalities on his favourites 
to the detriment of his faithful servants ; and the porters 
were reprimanded for having allowed the woman to come 
in. Their excuse was> " that it was not the custom ever 
to refuse to minstrels admission into the royal houses." 
During the reign of Henry VI., we find that the 
minstrels, who undertook to impart mirth to festivals, 
were frequently better paid than the priests who came 
to solemnise them. To the festival of the Holy Cross, 
at Abingdon, came twelve priests and twelve minstrels ; 
each of the former received "fourpence," and each of the 
latter, "two shillings and fourpence." In 1441, eight 
priests, from Coventry, who had been invited to Maxtoke 
Priory to perform an annual service, received two shillings 
each ; but the six minstrels who had been appointed to 



42 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

amuse the assembled monks in the refectory, had four 
shillings a-piece, and supped with the sub-prior, in the 
"painted chamber," which was lighted up for the 
occasion with eight large flambeaux of wax, the expense 
of which is set clown in due form in the accounts of the 
convent. 

Thus, wherever festivities took place, wherever men 
gathered together for amusement, in convents and fairs, 
in the public highways and in the castles of the nobility, 
the minstrels were always present, mixing with all 
classes of society, and charming, with their songs and 
tales, the inhabitants of the country and the dwellers in 
towns, the rich and the poor, the farmers, the monks, 
and the nobles of high degree. Their arrival was at 
once an event and a custom, their intervention a luxury 
and a necessity ; at no time, and in no place, could 
they fail to collect around them an eager crowd ; they 
were protected by the public favour, and Parliament 
often had them under consideration, sometimes to 
recognise their rights, but more frequently to repress the 
abuses occasioned by their wandering life and increasing 
numbers. 

What, then, were the manners of the people who 
took such enthusiastic delight in these amusements? 
What leisure had they for the indulgence of their taste ? 
What opportunities, what festive occasions collected 
these men so frequently together, and provided these 
popular bards with a multitude ever ready to listen and 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 43 

applaud ? That, beneath the brilliant sky of the south, 
free from the necessity of striving against natural hard- 
ships, invited by the mildness of the climate and the 
genial warmth of the sun to live in the open air beneath 
the cooling shade of their olive-trees, devolving upon 
their slaves the performance of all laborious duties, and 
uncontrolled by any domestic habits, the Greeks should 
have thronged around their rhapsodists, and at a later 
period crowded their open theatres, to yield their 
imagination to the charm of the simple narratives or 
pathetic delineations of poetry; or that even in our own 
day, under the influence of their scorching atmosphere 
and idle life, the Arabs, gathering round an animated 
story-teller, should spend entire days in following the 
course of his adventures ; — all this we can understand 
and explain; there the sky is not inclement, and 
material life requires none of those efforts which prevent 
men from giving themselves up to pleasures of this 
kind; nor are their institutions opposed to their in- 
dulgence in such enjoyments, but all things combine, on 
the contrary, to render their attainment easy and 
natural, and to occasion numerous meetings, frequent 
festivities, and protracted periods of leisure. But it was 
in a northern climate, beneath the sway of a cold and 
severe nature, in a society partially subject to the feudal 
system, and among a people living a difficult and 
laborious life, that the English minstrels found repeated 
opportunities for the exercise of their art, and were 



44 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

always sure that a crowd would collect to witness their 
performance. 

The reason of this is, that the habits of England, 
being formed by the influence of the same causes that 
led to the establishment of her political institutions, 
early assumed that character of agitation and publicity 
which calls for the appearance of a popular poetry. In 
other countries, the general tendency was to the separa- 
tion of the various social conditions, and even to the 
isolation of individuals. In England, everything com- 
bined to bring them into contact and connection. The 
principle of common deliberation upon matters of com- 
mon interest, which is the foundation of all liberty, 
prevailed in all the institutions of England, and pre- 
sided over all the customs of the country. The freemen 
of the rural districts and the towns never ceased to meet 
together for the discussion and transaction of their 
common affairs. The county courts, the jury, corporate 
associations, and elections of all kinds, multiplied 
occasions of meeting, and diffused in every direction the 
habits of public life. That hierarchical organisation of 
feudalism, which, on the Continent, extended from the 
poorest gentleman to the most powerful monarch, and 
was incessantly stimulating the vanity of every man to 
leave his own sphere and pass into the rank of suzerain, 
was never completely established in Great Britain. The 
nobility of the second order, by separating themselves 
from the great barons, in order to take their place at 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 45 

the bead of the commons, returned, so to speak, into the 
body of the nation, and adopted its manners as well as 
assumed its rights. It was on his own estate, among his 
tenants, farmers, and servants, that the gentleman esta- 
blished his importance ; and he based it upon the 
cultivation of his lands and the discharge of those local 
magistracies which, by placing him in connexion with 
the whole of the population, necessitated the concurrence 
of public opinion, and provided the adjacent district 
with a centre around which it might rally. Thus, whilst 
active rights brought equals into communication, rural 
life created a bond of union between the superior and 
his inferior; and agriculture, by the community of 
its interests and labours, bound the whole population 
together by ties, which, descending successively from 
class to class, were in some sort terminated and sealed 
in the earth, — the immutable basis of their union. 

Such a state of society leads to competence and con- 
fidence ; and where competence reigns, and confidence 
is felt, the necessity of common enjoyment soon arises. 
Men who are accustomed to meet together for business, 
will meet together for pleasure also; and when the 
serious life of the landowner is spent among his fields, he 
does not remain a stranger to the joys of the people who 
cultivate or surround them. Continual and general 
festivals gave animation to the country life of old 
England. What was their primary origin? What 
traditions and customs served as their foundation? 



46 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

How did the progress of rustic prosperity lead gradually 
to this joyous movement of meetings, banquets, and 
games? It is of little use to know the cause; the fact itself 
is most worthy of our observation • and in the sixteenth 
century, when civil discord had been brought to a term, 
we may follow it in all its brilliant details. At Christ- 
mas, before the gates of the castles, the herald, bearing 
the arms of the family, thrice shouted Largesse ! — 

" Then opened wide the Baron's hall 
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all ; 
Power laid his rod of rule aside, 
And ceremony doffed his pride. 
The heir, with roses in his shoes, 
That night might village partner choose ; 
The lord, underogating, share 
The vulgar game of ' post and pair.' " 1 

Who shall describe the general joy and hospitality, the 
roaring fire in the hall, the well-spread table, the beef 
and pudding, and the abundance of good cheer which 
was then to be found in the house of the farmer as well 
as in the mansion of the gentleman. The dance, when 
the head began to swim with wassail; the songs of 
minstrels, and tales of bygone days, when the party had 
become tired of dancing, — were the pleasures which then 
reigned throughout England, when, — - 

" All hail'd, with uncontroll'd delight, 
And general voice, the happy night, 
That to the cottage, as the crown, 
Brought tidings of salvation down. 



1 Scott's " Marmion," introduction to Canto sixth. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 47 

'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale ; 

'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale ; 

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer 

The poor man's heart through half the year." * 

These Christinas festivities lasted for twelve days, 
varied by a thousand pleasures, kindled by the good 
wishes and presents of New Year's Day, and terminated 
by the Feast of Kings on Twelfth Day. But soon 
after came Plough Monday, the day on which work was 
resumed, and the first day of labour also was marked 
by a feast. 

" Good housewifes, whom God hath enriched enough, 
Forget not the feasts that belong to the plough," 

says old Tusser, in his quaint rural poems. 2 The spindle 
also had its festival. The harvest feast was one of 
equality, and an avowal, as it were, of those mutual 
necessities which bring men into union. On that day, 
masters and servants, collected round the same table, 
and mingling in the same conversation, did not appear 
to be brought into contact with each other by the com- 
plaisance of a superior desirous of rewarding his 
inferior, but by an equal right to the pleasures of 
the day: — 

" For all that clear'd the crop, or till'd the ground, 
Are guests by right of custom ; — old and young ; 



1 Scott's " Marmion," Introduction to Canto sixth. 
. 2 Thomas Tusser, a poet of the sixteenth century, was born about 1515, and 
died in 1583. He was the author of some English Georgics, under the title 
of " Five hundreth points of good husbandry, united to as many of good 
huswifery." 



48 SHAKSPEAKE AND HIS TIMES. 

Here once a year distinction low'rs its crest, 

The master, servant, and the merry guest, 

Are equal all ; and round the happy ring 

The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling, 

And, warm'd with gratitude, he quits his place, 

With sun-burnt hands and ale-enliven'd face, 

Refills the jug his honour'd host to tend, 

To serve at once the master and the friend ; 

Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share his tale, 

His nuts, his conversation, and his ale. 

Such were the days, — of days long past I sing." 1 

Sowing-time, sheep-shearing, indeed, every epoch of 
interest in rural life, was celebrated by similar meetings 
and banquets, and by games of all kinds. But what day 
could equal the first of May, brilliant with the joys of 
youth and the hopes of the year ? Scarce had the rising 
sun announced the arrival of this festive morn, than the 
entire youthful population hastened into the woods and 
meadows, to the river-bank and hill-side, accompanied 
by the sounds of music, to gather their harvest of 
flowers ; and, returning laden with hawthorn and 
verdure, adorned the doors and windows of their houses 
with their spoils, covered with blossoms the May-pole 
which they had cut in the forest, and crowned with 
garlands the horns of the oxen which were to drag it 
in triumph through the village. Herrick, a contem- 
porary of Shakspeare, thus invites his mistress to go 
a-Maying : — 

" Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn 
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. 



1 Bloomfield's "Farmer's Boy," p. 40, ed. 1845. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

See how Aurora throws her fair 
Fresh quilted colours through the air ; 
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, aud see 
The dew bespangliug herb aud tree. 
Each flower has wept, aud bow'd toward the east, 
Above au hour siuce, yet you are not drest, 
Nay, not so much as out of bed ; 
"When all the birds have matins said, 
And sung their thankful hymns : 'tis sin, 
Nay, profanation, to keep in, 
When as a thousand virgins on this day, 
Spring sooner than the lark to fetch in May. 

Come, my Corinna, come ; and, coming, mark 

How each field turns a street, each street a park 
Made green, and trimm'd with trees; see^Iow 
Devotion gives each house a bough, 
Or branch ; each porch, each door, ere this, 
An ark, a tabernacle is, 

Made up <^f white thorn neatly interwove ; 

As if here were those cooler shades of love." 



The elegance of the cottages on May-morning was 
imitated by the castles ; and the young gentlefolks, as 
well as the lads and maidens of the village, went forth 
into the fields in search of flowers. Joy is snre to 
introduce equality into pleasures ; the symbols of joy 
never vary, and are changed as little by difference of 
rank as by difference of season. Here enjoyment, led 
by abundance, seems to spend the year in continual 
festivities. Just as the first of May displays its 
profusion of verdure, as sheep-shearing fills the 
streets with flowers, and harvest-home is adorned 
with ears of corn, so Christmas will decorate the walls 
with ivy, holly, and evergreen. Just as dances, races, 
shows, and rustic sports, cause the sky of spring 



50 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

to resound with their joyous tones, so games in 
which — 

" White shirts supplied the masquerade, 
And smutted cheeks the visors made," 

will waken the echoes, on the cold December nights, 
with shouts of gaiety ; and the May-pole and Christmas- 
log will alike be borne in triumph and extolled in song. 

Amidst these games, festivals, and banquets, at these 
innumerable friendly meetings, and in this joyous and 
habitual conviviality (to use the national expression), the 
minstrels took their place and sang their songs. The 
subjects of these songs were the traditions of the 
country, the adventures of popular heroes as well as of 
noble champions, the exploits of Hobin Hood against 
the Sheriff of Nottingham, as well as the conflicts of the 
Percies with the Douglas clan. Thus the public man- 
ners called for poetry • thus poetry originated in the 
manners of the people, and became connected with all the 
interests, and with the entire existence, of a population 
accustomed to live, to act, to prosper, and to rejoice in 
common. 

How could dramatic poetry have remained unknown 
to a people of such a character, so frequently assembling 
together, and so fond of holidays ? We have every 
reason to believe that it was more than once introduced 
into the games of the minstrels. The ancient writers 
speak of them under the names of mimi y joculatores, and 
histriones. Women were frequently connected with 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 51 

their bands ; and several of their ballads, among others 
that of " The Nut-brown Maid," are evidently in the 
form of dialogue. The minstrels, however, rather 
formed the national taste, and directed it to the drama, 
than originated the drama itself. The first attempts at 
a true theatrical performance are difficult and expensive. 
The co-operation of a public power is indispensable ; 
and it is only in important and general solemnities that 
the effect produced by the play can possibly correspond 
to the efforts of imagination and labour which it has 
cost. England, like Prance, Italy, and Spain, was 
indebted for her first theatrical performances to the fes- 
tivals of the clergy • only they were, it would appear, 
of earlier origin in that country than elsewhere. The 
performance of Mysteries in England can be traced back 
as far as the twelfth century, and probably originated at 
a still earlier period. But in Erance, the clergy, after 
having erected theatres, were not slow to denounce 
them ; they had claimed the privilege in the hope of 
being able, by the means of such performances, to 
maintain or stimulate the conquests of the faith; but 
ere long they began to dread their effects, and aban- 
doned their employment. The English clergy were 
more intimately associated with the tastes, habits, and 
diversions of the people. The Church also took advan- 
tage of that universal conviviality which I have just 
described. Was any great religious ceremony to be 
celebrated? or was any parish in want of funds? A 

E 2 



52 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

Church-ale 1 was announced ; the churchwardens brewed 
some beer, and sold it to the people at the door of the 
church, and to the rich in the interior of the church 
itself. Every one contributed his money, presence, pro- 
visions, and mirth to the festival ; the joy of good works 
was augmented by the pleasures of good cheer, and the 
piety of the rich rejoiced to exceed, by their gifts, the 
price demanded. It often happened that several parishes 
united to hold the Church-ale by turns for the profit of 
each. The ordinary games followed these meetings ; 
the minstrel, the morris-dance, and the performance of 
Robin Hood, with Maid Marian and the Hobby-horse, 
were never absent. The seasons of confession, Easter 
and Whitsuntide, also furnished the Church and the 
people with periodical opportunities for common re- 
joicings. Thus familiar with the popular manners, the 
English clergy, when offering new pleasures to the 
people, thought less of modifying them than of turning 
them to account \ and when they perceived the fondness 
of the people for dramatic performances, whatever the 
subject might be, they had no idea of renouncing so 
powerful a means of gaining popularity. In 1378, the 
choristers of St, Paul's complained to Richard II. that 
certain ignorant fellows had presumed to perforin histories 
from the Old Testament, " to the great prejudice of the 
clergy." After this period, the Mysteries and Moralities 

1 Also called Whitsun-ale. Beer was so intimately connected with the 
popular festivals that the word ale had become synonymous with 



SHAKSrEARE AND HIS TIMES. 53 

never ceased to be, both in churches and convents, a 
favourite amusement of the nation, and a leading occu- 
pation of the ecclesiastics. At the beginning of the 
sixteenth century, an Earl of Northumberland, who was 
a great protector of literature, established as a rule of 
his household that the sole business of one of his chap- 
lains should be to compose interludes. Towards the 
end of his reign, Henry VIII. forbade the Church to 
continue these performances, which, in the wavering- 
state of his belief, were displeasing to the King, and 
offended him sometimes as a Catholic and sometimes as 
a Protestant. **But they re-appeared after his death, and 
were sanctioned by such high authority, that the young 
King, Edward VI., himself composed a piece against the 
Papists, entitled " The Whore of Babylon ;" and Queen 
Mary, in her turn, commanded the performance, in the 
.churches, of popular dramas favourable to Popery. 
Finally, in 1569, we find the choristers of St. Paul's, 
" clothed in silk and satin/' playing profane pieces in 
Elizabeth's chapel, in the different royal houses ; and 
they were so well skilled in their profession, that, in 
Shakspeare's time, they constituted one of the best and 
most popular troops of actors in London. 

Ear, therefore, from opposing or seeking to change 
the taste of the people for theatrical representations, the 
English clergy hastened to gratify it. Their influence, 
it is true, e^ave to the works which they brought on the 
stao-e a more serious and moral character than was 



54 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

possessed in other countries by compositions dependent 
upon the whims of the public, and cursed by the 
anathemas of the Church. Notwithstanding its coarse- 
ness of ideas and language, the English drama, which 
became so licentious in the reign of Charles II., appears 
chaste and pure in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
when compared to the first essays of dramatic com- 
position in France. But it did not the less continue 
to be popular in its character, ignorant of all scientific 
regularity, and faithful to the national taste. The 
clergy would have lost much by endeavouring to sup- 
press theatrical performances. They possessed no 
exclusive privilege ; and numerous competitors vied 
with them for applause and success. Robin Hood and 
Maid Marian, the Lord of Misrule and the Hobby-horse, 
had not yet disappeared. Travelling actors, attached to 
the service of the powerful nobles, traversed the counties 
of England under their auspices, and obtained, by 
favour of a gratuitous performance before the mayor, 
aldermen, and their friends, the right of exercising their 
profession in the various towns ; the court-yards of inns 
usually serving as their theatre. As they were in a 
position to give greater pomp to their exhibitions, and 
thus to attract a larger number of spectators, the 
clergy struggled successfully against their rivals, and 
even maintained a marked predominance, but always 
upon condition of adapting their representations to the 
feelings, habits, and imaginative character of the people, 



SHAKSPEARE VXD HIS TIMES. 55 

who had been formed to a taste for poetry by then own 
festivals, and by the songs of the minstrels. 

Such were the condition and tendency of dramatic 

poetry, when, at the commencement of the reign of 
Elizabeth, it appeared threatened by a twofold danger. 
As it daily became more popular, it at last awakened 
the anxiety of religious severity, and fired the ambition 
of literary pedantry. The national taste found itself 
attached, almost simultaneously, by the anathemas of 
the Reformers and the pretensions of men of letters. 

If these two^ classes of enemies had united in their 
opposition to the drama, it would perhaps have fallen a 
victim to then attacks. But while the Puritans wished 
to destroy it, men of letters only desired to get it into 
then own hands. It was therefore defended by the 
latter, when the former inveighed against its existence. 
Some influential citizens of London obtained from 
Elizabeth the temporary suppression of stage plays 
within the jurisdiction of the civic authorities ; but, 
beyond that jurisdiction, the Blackfriars Theatre and 
the Court of the Queen still retained their dramatic 
privileges. The Puritans, by their sermons, may have 
alamied some few consciences, and occasioned some few 
scruples : and perhaps also some sudden conversions 
may here and there have deprived the May-day games 
of the performance of the hobby-horse, then greatest 
ornament, and the special object of the wrath of the 
preachers. But the time of the power of the Puritans 



56 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

had not yet arrived, and, to obtain decisive success, it 
was too much to have to overcome at once the national 
taste and the taste of the Court. 

Elizabeth's Court would well have liked to be classical. 
Theological discussions had made learning fashionable. 
At that time it was an essential part of the education of 
a noble lady to be able to read Greek, and to distil 
strong waters. The known taste of the Queen had 
added to these the gallantries of ancient mythology. 
" When she paid a visit at the house of any of her 
nobility," says Warton, " at entering the hall she was 
saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy- 
chamber by Mercury. The pages of the family were 
converted into wood-nymphs, who peeped from every 
bower ; and the footmen gambolled over the lawns in 
the figure of Satyrs. When she rode through the 
streets of Norwich, Cupid, at the command of the mayor 
and aldermen, advancing from a group of gods who had 
left Olympus to grace the procession, gave her a golden 
arrow, which, under the influence of such irresistible 
charms, was sure to wound the most obdurate heart : 
' a gift/ says Holinshed, ' which her Majesty, now 
verging to her fiftieth year, received very thankfully. 5 " 1 

But the Court may strive in vain ; it is not the pur- 
veyor of its own pleasures ; it rarely makes choice of 
them, invents them even less frequently, and generally 
receives them at the hands of men who make it their 

1 Warton's "History of English Poetry," vol. iii. pp. 492, 493. 



SHAKSPEA11E AND HIS TIMES. 57 

business to provide for its amusement. The empire of 
classical literature, which was established in France 
before the foundation of the stage, was the work of men 
of letters, who derived protection from, and felt justly 
proud of, the exclusive possession of a foreign erudition 
which raised them above the rest of the nation. The 
Court of France submitted to the guidance of the men 
of letters; and the nation at large, undecided how to act, 
and destitute of those institutions which might have 
given authority^to its habits and influence to its tastes, 
formed into groups, as it were, around the Court. In 
England the drama had taken precedence of classic lore ; 
ancient history and mythology found a popular poetry 
and creed in possession of the means of delighting the 
minds of the people ; and the study of the classics, 
which became known at a late period, and at first only 
by the medium of French translations, was introduced 
as one of those foreign fashions by which a few men may 
render themselves remarkable, but which take root only 
when they fall into harmonious accordance with the 
national taste. The Court itself sometimes affected, in 
evidence of its attainments, exclusive admiration for 
ancient literature ; but as soon as it stood in need of 
amusement, it followed the example of the general 
public ; and, indeed, it was not easy to pass from the 
exhibition of a bear-baiting to the pretensions of 
classical severity, even according to the ideas then 
entertained regarding it. 



58 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

The stage, therefore, remained under the almost 
undisputed government of the general taste ; and science 
attempted only very timid invasions of this prerogative. 
In 1561, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, procured 
the representation, in presence of Elizabeth, of his 
tragedy of " Gorboduc," or " Eorrex and Porrex," 
which critics have considered as the dramatic glory of 
the time preceding Shakspeare. This was, in fact, the 
first play which was properly divided into acts and 
scenes, and written throughout in an elevated tone \ 
but it was far from pretending to a strict observance 
of the unities, and the example of a very tiresome work, 
in which everything was done by means of conversa- 
tion, did not prove very alluring either to authors or 
actors. About the same period, other pieces appeared 
on the stage, in greater conformity to the natural 
instincts of the country, such as " The Pinner of Wake- 
field," and " Jeronimo, or the Spanish Tragedy; 57 and 
for these the public openly demonstrated their prefer- 
ence. Lord Buckhurst himself was able to exercise no 
influence over the dominant taste, except by remaining 
faithful to it. His " Mirrour for Magistrates," a col- 
lection of incidents from the history of England, narrated 
in a dramatic form, passed rapidly into the hands of all 
readers, and became an inexhaustible mine for poets to 
draw from. Works of this kind were best suited to 
minds educated by the songs of the minstrels ; and this 
was the erudition most relished by the majority of the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 59 

gentlefolks of the country, whose reading seldom ex- 
tended beyond a few collections of tales, ballads, and old 
chronicles. The drama fearlessly appropriated to itself 
subjects so familiar to the multitude ; and historical 
plays, under the name of " Histories/' delighted the 
English with the narrative of their own deeds, the 
pleasant sound of national names, the exhibition of 
popular customs, and the delineation of the mode of life 
of all classes, wkich were all comprised in the political 
history of a people who have ever taken part in the 
administration of their national affairs. 

Beside these national histories, some few incidents 
from ancient histories, or the annals of other nations, 
took their place, commonly disfigured by the mixture of 
fabulous events. But neither authors nor public felt 
the slightest anxiety with regard to their origin and 
nature. They were invariably overloaded with those 
fantastic details, and those forms borrowed from the 
common habits of life, with which children so often 
decorate the objects which they are obliged to picture 
to themselves by the aid of their imagination alone. 
Thus Tamburlaine appeared in his chariot drawn by 
the kings whom he had conquered, and complaining 
bitterly of the slow pace and miserable appearance of his 
team. On the other hand, Vice, the usual buffoon of 
dramatic compositions, performed under the name of 
Ambidexter, the principal part in Preston's tragedy of 
" Cainbyses," which was thus converted into a Morality 



60 SHAKSPEARE A^D HIS TIMES. 

which would have been intolerably tedious if the 
spectators had not had the gratification of seeing a 
prevaricating judge flayed alive upon the stage, by 
means of " a false skin/' as we are duly informed by the 
author. The performance, though almost entirely 
deficient in decorations and changes of scenery, was ani- 
mated by material movement, and by the representation 
of sensible objects. When tragedies were performed, the 
stage was hung with black ; and in an inventory of 
the properties of a troop of comedians, we find enu- 
merated, "the Moor's limbs, four Turks' heads, old 
Mahomet's head, one wheel and frame in the siege of 
London, one great horse with his legs, one dragon, one 
rock, one cage, one tomb, and one hell's mouth." 1 This 
is a curious specimen of the means of interest which 
it was then thought necessary to employ upon the stage. 
And yet, at this period, Shakspeare had already 
appeared ! and, before Shakspeare' s advent, the stage 
had constituted, not only the chief gratification of the 
multitude, but the favourite amusement of the most 
distinguished men ! Lord Southampton went to the 
theatre every day. As early as 1570, one, and probably 
two, regular theatres existed in London. In 1583, a 
short time after the temporary victory gained by the 
Puritans over the performance of stage-plays in that 
city, there were eight troops of actors in London, each 
of whom performed three times a week. In 1592, that 

1 Malone's Shakspeare, vol. iii. pp. 309—313, ed. 1821. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 61 

is, eight years before the time when Hardy at length 
obtained permission to open a theatre in Paris, which 
had previously been impossible on account of the useless 
privilege possessed by the "Brethren of the Passion," an 
English pamphleteer complained most indignantly of 
" some shallow-brained censurers," who had dared 
" mightily to oppugn " the performance of plays, which, 
he says, are frequented by all " men that are their own 
masters, — as, gentlemen of the Court, the Inns of Court, 
and the number of captains and soldiers about London." 1 
Finally, in 1596, so vast a multitude of persons went by 
water to the theatres, which were nearly all situated on 
the banks of the Thames, that it became necessary con- 
siderably to augment the number of boatmen. 

A taste so universal and so eager could not long 
remain satisfied with coarse and insipid productions • a 
pleasure which is so ardently sought after by the human 
mind, calls for all the efforts and all the power of human 
genius. This national movement now stood in need 
only of a man of genius, capable of receiving its impulse, 
and raising the public to the highest regions of art. 
By what stimulus was Shakspeare prompted to undertake 
this glorious task ? What circumstance revealed to him 
his mission ? What sudden light illumined his genius ? 
These questions we cannot answer. Just as a beacon 
shines in the night-time without disclosing to our view 

1 See Nash, "Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil," p. 59, reprinted 
by the Shakespeare Society in 1842. 



62 SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 

the prop by which it is supported, so Shakspeare's mind 
appears to us, in his works, in isolation, as it were, from 
his person. Scarcely, throughout the long series of the 
poet's successes, can we discern any traces of the man, 
and we possess no information whatever regarding those 
early times of which he alone was able to give us an 
account. As an actor, it does not appear that he 
distinguished himself above his fellows. The poet is 
rarely adapted for action ; his strength lies beyond the 
world of reality, and he attains his lofty elevation only 
because he does not employ his powers in bearing the 
burdens of earth. Shakspeare' s commentators will not 
consent to deny him any of those successes to which he 
could possibly lay claim, and the excellent advice which 
Hamlet gives to the actors at the Court of Denmark has 
been quoted in support of a theory that Shakspeare must 
have executed marvellously well that which he so 
thoroughly understood. But Shakspeare showed equal 
acquaintance with the characters of great kings, mighty 
warriors, and consummate villains, and yet no one would 
be likely to conclude from this that he was capable of 
being a Richard the Thud, or an Iago. Fortunately, we 
have reason to believe that applause, which Avas then so 
easily obtained, was not bestowed in a sufficient degree 
to tempt an ambition which the character of the 
young poet would have rendered it too easy for him 
to satisfy ; and Rowe, his first historian, informs 
us that his dramatic merits " soon distinguished him, 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 68 

if not as an extraordinary actor, yet as an excellent 
writer." 

Years nevertheless elapsed before Shakspeare made 
his appearance on the stage as an author. He arrived 
in London in 1584, and is not known to have engaged 
in any employment unconnected with the theatre during 
his residence in the metropolis ; but " Pericles/' his first 
work, according^to Dryden, though many of his other 
critics and admirers have rejected it as spurious, did not 
appear until 1590. How was it possible that, amid the 
novel scenes that surrounded him, his active and fertile 
mind, whose rapidity, according to his contemporaries, 
" equalled that of his pen," could have remained for six 
years without producing anything? In 1593 he pub- 
lished his poem of "Venus and Adonis," which he 
dedicated to Lord Southampton as " the first heir of his 
invention;" and yet, during the two preceding years, 
two dramas which are now ascribed to him had achieved 
success upon the stage. The composition of the poem 
may have preceded them, although the dedication was 
written subsequently to their production; but if the 
" Venus and Adonis " is anterior to all his dramas, we 
must come to the conclusion that, in the midst of his 
theatrical life, Shakspeare's eminently dramatic genius 
was able to engage in other labours, and that his first 
productions were not intended for the stage. 

A more probable supposition is that Shakspeare spent 
his labour, at first, upon works which were not his own, 



64 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

and which his genius, still in its noviciate, has been 
unable to rescue from oblivion. Dramatic productions y 
at that time, were less the property of the author who 
had conceived them than of the actors who had received 
them. This is always the case when theatres begin to 
be established; the construction of a building, and the 
expenses of a performance, are far greater risks to run 
than the composition of a drama. To the founder of the 
theatre alone is dramatic art indebted, at its origin, for 
that popular concourse which establishes its existence, 
and which the talent of the poet could never have drawn 
together without his assistance. When Hardy founded 
his theatre at Paris, each troop of actors had its poet, 
who was paid a regular salary for the composition of 
plays, just in the same way as the chaplain of the Earl 
of Northumberland. In the time of Shakspeare, the 
English stage had made much greater progress, and 
already enjoyed the facility of selection and the advan- 
tages of competition. The poet no longer disposed of 
his labour beforehand, but he sold it when completed \ 
and the publication of a piece, for permission to perform 
which an author had been paid, was regarded, if not as 
a robbery, at least as a want of delicacy which he found 
it difficult to defend or excuse. While dramatic pro- 
perty was in this state, the share which the self-love of 
an author might claim in it was held in very low 
account ; the success of a work which he had sold did not 
belong to him, and its literary merit became, in the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 65 

hands of the actors, a property which they turned to 
account by all the improvements which their experience 
could suggest. Transported suddenly into the midst of 
that moving picture of human vicissitudes which even 
the paltriest dramatic productions then heaped upon the 
stage, the imagination of Shakspeare doubtless beheld 
new fields- opening to its view. What interest, what 
truthfulness, migltf he not infuse into the store of facts 
presented to him with such coarse baldness ! What 
pathetic effects might he not educe from all this 
theatrical parade ! The matter was before him, waiting 
for spirit and life. Why had not Shakspeare attempted 
to communicate them to it ? However confused and 
incomplete his first views may have been, they 
were rays of light arising to disperse the darkness and 
disorder of chaos. Now a superior man possesses the 
power of making the light which illumines his own eyes 
evident to the eyes of others. Shakspeare's comrades 
doubtless soon perceived what new successes he might 
obtain for them by remodelling the uncouth works 
which composed their dramatic stock ; and a few 
brilliant touches imparted to a groundwork which he 
had not painted, — a few pathetic or terrible scenes 
intercalated in an action which he had not directed, — 
and the art of turning to account a plan which he had 
not conceived, — were, in all probability, his earliest 
labours, and his first presages of glory. In 1592, a 
time at which we can scarcely be certain that a single 



66 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

original and complete work had issned from his pen, 
a jealons and discontented author, whose compositions 
he had probably improved too greatly, speaks of him, in 
the fantastic style of the time, as an "upstart crow, 
beautified with our feathers ; an absolute Johannes 
Factotum, who is, in his own conceit, the only Shake- 
scene in the country." l 

It was, we are inclined to believe, while engaged in 
these labours, more conformable to the necessities of 
his position than to the freedom of his genius, that 
Shakspeare sought to recreate his mind by the com- 
position of his " Venus and Adonis." Perhaps even the 
idea of this work was not then entirely new to him ; 
for several sonnets, relating to the same subject, occur 
in a volume of poems published in 1596, under 
Shakspeare's name, and the title of which, " The 
Passionate Pilgrim," is expressive of the condition of a 
man wandering, in affliction, far from his native land. 
The amusement of a few melancholy hours, from which 
the age and character of the poet had not availed to 
preserve him at his entrance upon a painful or uncertain 
destiny, — these little works are doubtless the first pro- 
ductions which Shakspeare' s poetic genius allowed him 
to avow ; and several of them, as well as the poem of* 
" Venus and Adonis," need to be excused, it must be 
confessed, by the effervescence of a youth too much 
addicted to dreams of pleasure not to attempt to 

1 Greene's " Groatsworth of Wit," published in 1592. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 67 

reproduce them in all their forms. In "Venus and 
Adonis/' the poet, absolutely carried away by the 
voluptuous power of his subject, seems entirely to have 
lost sight of its mythological wealth. Venus, stripped of 
the prestige of divinity, is nothing but a beautiful 
courtesan endeavouring unsuccessfully, by all the 
prayers, tears, and artifices of love, to stimulate the 
languid desires *bf a cold and disdainful youth. 
Hence arises a monotony which is not redeemed by 
the simple gracefulness and poetic merit of many 
passages, and which is augmented by the division of 
the poem into stanzas of six lines, the last two of 
which almost invariably present a jeu d' esprit. But a 
metre singularly free from irregularities, a cadence full 
of harmony, and a versification which had never before 
been equalled in England, announced the "honey- 
tongued poet ;" and the poem of " Lucrece '■ appeared 
soon afterwards to complete those epic productions 
which for some time sufficed to maintain his glory. 

After having, in " Venus and Adonis," employed the 
most lascivious colours to depict the pangs of unsatisfied 
desire, Shakspeare has described, in "The Rape of 
Lucrece," with the chastest pen, and by way of 
reparation, as it were, the progress and triumph of 
criminal lust. The refinement of the ideas, the affecta- 
tion of the style, and the merits of the versification, 
are the same in both works ; the poetry in the second is 
less brilliant, but more emphatic, and abounds less in 

F 2 



68 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

graceful images than in lofty thoughts; but we can already 
discern indications of a profound acquaintance with the 
feelings of man, and great talent in developing them in 
a dramatic form, by means of the slightest circumstances 
of life. Thus Lucrece, weighed down by a sense of her 
shame, after a night of despair, summons a young slave 
at dawn of day, to dispatch him to the camp with a 
letter to call her husband home ; the slave, being of a 
timid and simple character, blushes on appearing in the 
presence of his mistress ; but Lucrece, filled with the 
consciousness of her dishonour, imagines that he blushes 
at her shame ; and under the influence of the idea that 
her secret is discovered, she stands trembling and 
confused before her slave. 

One detail in this poem seems to indicate the epoch 
at which it was written. Lucrece, to wile away her 
grief, stops to contemplate a picture of the siege of 
Troy ; and, in describing it, the poet complacently 
refers to the effects of perspective \ — 

" The scalps of many, almost hid behind, 
To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind." 

This is the observation of a man very recently struck 
with the wonders of art, and a symptom of that poetic 
surprise which the sight of unknown objects awakens in 
an imagination capable of being moved thereby. Perhaps 
we may conclude, from this circumstance, that the 
poem of " Lucrece " was composed during the early part 
of Shakspeare's residence in London. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 69 

But whatever may be the date of these two poems, 
their place, among Shakspeare's works, is at a period far 
more remote from us than any of those which filled up 
his dramatic career. In this career he marched forward, 
and drew his age after him ; and his weakest essays in 
dramatic poetry are indicative of the prodigious power 
which he displayed in his last works. Shakspeare's 
true history belongs to the stage alone f after having 
seen it there, we cannot seek for it elsewhere ; and 
Shakspeare himself no longer quitted it. His sonnets — 
fugitive pieces which the poetic and sprightly grace of 
some fines would not nave rescued from oblivion, but for 
the curiosity which attaches to the slightest traces of a 
celebrated man — may here and there cast a little light 
on the obscure or doubtful portions of his life ; but, in 
a literary point of view, we have in future to consider 
him only as a dramatic poet. 

I have already stated what was the first employment 
of his talents in this kind of composition. Great 
uncertainty has resulted therefrom with regard to the 
authenticity of some of his works. Shakspeare had a 
hand in a vast number of dramas ; and probably, even 
in his own time, it would not have been always easy to 
assign his precise share in them all. For two centuries, 
criticism has been engaged in determining the boun- 
daries of his true possessions ; but facts are wanting for 
this investigation, and literary judgments have usually 
been influenced by a desire to strengthen some favourite 



70 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

theory on the subject. It is, therefore, almost impos- 
sible, at the present clay, to pronounce with certainty 
upon the authenticity of Shakspeare's doubtful plays. 
Nevertheless, after having read them, I cannot coincide 
with M. Schlegel — for whose acumen I have the highest 
respect — in attributing them to him. The baldness 
which characterises these pieces, the heap of unexplained 
incidents and incoherent sentiments which they contain, 
and their precipitate progress through undeveloped 
scenes towards events destitute of interest, are unmis- 
takeable signs by which, in times still rude, we may 
recognise fecundity devoid of genius ; signs so contrary 
to the nature of Shakspeare' s talent, that I cannot even 
discover in them the defects which may have disfigured 
his earliest essays. Among the multitude of plays 
which, by common consent, the latest editors have 
rejected as being at least doubtful, " Locrine," "Thomas, 
Lord Cromwell," " The London Prodigal," " The 
Puritan," and " The -Yorkshire Tragedy," scarcely pre- 
sent the slightest indications of having been retouched 
by any hand superior to that of their original author. 
" Sir John Oldcastle," which is more interesting, and 
composed with greater good sense, than any of the fore- 
going, is animated in some scenes by a comic humour 
akin to that of Shakspeare. But if it be true that 
genius, even in its lowest abasement, gives forth some 
luminous rays to betray its presence ; if Shakspeare, in 
particular, bore that distinctive mark which, in one 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 



of his sonnets, makes him say, in reference to his 



writings- 



" That every word doth almost tell my name ; " 1 



assuredly he had not to reproach himself with the pro- 
duction of that execrable accumulation of horrors which, 
under the name of "Titus Andronicus," has been foisted 
upon the English people as a dramatic work, and in 
which, Heaven be thanked ! there is not a single spark 
of truth, or scintillation of genius, which can give 
evidence against him. 

Of the doubtful plays, "Pericles" is, in my opinion, 
the only one to which the name of Shakspeare can be 
attached with any degree of certainty ; or at least, it is 
the only one in which we find evident traces of his 
co-operation, especially in the scene in which Pericles 
meets and recognises his daughter Marina, whom he 
believed dead. If, during Shakspeare's lifetime, any 
other man could have combined power and truth in so 
high a degree in the delineation of the natural feelings, 
England would then have possessed another poet. 
Nevertheless, though it contains one fine scene and 
many scattered beauties, the play is a bad one ; it is 
destitute of reality and art, and is entirely alien to 
Shakspeare's system : it is interesting only as marking 
the point from which he started; and it seems to belong 
to his works as a last monument of that which he over- 
threw, — as a remnant of that anti- dramatic scaffolding 

1 Sonnet 76, Knight's Library Edition, vol. sdi., p. 152. 



72 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

for which he was about to substitute the presence and 
movement of vitality. 

The spectacles of barbarous nations always appeal to 
their sense of vision, before they attempt to influence 
their imagination by the aid of poetry. The taste of 
the English for those pageants which, during the Middle 
Ages, constituted the chief attraction of public solem- 
nities throughout Europe, exercised great influence over 
the stage in England. During the first half of the 
fifteenth century, the monk Lydgate, when singing the 
misfortunes of Troy with that liberty of erudition which 
English literature tolerated to a greater extent than that 
of any other country, describes a dramatic performance 
which, he says, took place within the walls of Troy. He 
describes the poet, "with deadly face all devoid of 
blood," rehearsing from a pulpit " all the noble deeds 
that were historial of kings, princes, and worthy 
emperors." At the same time — 

" Amydde the theatre, shrowded in a tent 
There came out men, gastful of their cheres, 
Disfygured their faces with vyseres, 
Playing by signes in the people's sight 
That the poete songe hath on height" 

Lydgate, a monk and poet, equally ready to rhyme a 
legend or a ballad, to compose verses for a masquerade 
or to sketch the plan of a religious pantomime, had 
probably figured in some performance of this kind ; and 
his description certainly gives us an accurate idea of the 
dramatic exhibitions of his time. When dialogue-poetry 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. To 

had taken possession of the stage, pantomime remained 
as an ornament and addition to the performance. In most 
of the plays anterior to Shakspeare, personages of an 
almost invariably emblematical character appear between 
the acts, to indicate the subject of the scenes about to 
follow. An historical or allegorical personage is intro- 
duced to explain these emblems, and to moralise the 
piece, that is, to 'point out the moral truths contained 
in it. In " Pericles," Gower, a poet of the fourteenth 
century, — celebrated for his " Confessio Amantis," in 
which he has related, in English verse, the story of 
Pericles as told by more ancient writers, — comes upon 
the stage to state to the public, not that which is about 
to happen, but such anterior facts as require to be 
explained, that the drama may be properly understood. 
Sometimes his narrative is interrupted and supplemented 
by the dumb representation of the facts themselves. 
Gower then explains all that the mute action has not 
elucidated. He appears not only at the commencement 
of the play and between the acts, but even during the 
course of an act, whenever it is found convenient to 
abridge by narrative some less interesting part of the 
action, in order to apprise the spectator of a change of 
place or a lapse of time, and thus to transport his 
imagination wherever a new scene requires its presence. 
This was decidedly a step in advance; a useless 
accessory had become a means of development and 
of clearness. But Shakspeare speedily rejected this 



74 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

factitious and awkward contrivance as unworthy of his 
art ; and ere long he inspired the action with power to 
explain itself, to make itself understood on appearance, 
and thus to give dramatic performances that aspect of 
life and reality which could never be attained by a 
machinery which thus coarsely displayed its wheel- works 
to public view. Among Shakspeare's subsequent dramas, 
" Henry V." and the " Winter's Tale" are the only ones 
in which the chorus intervenes to relieve the poet in the 
difficult task of conveying his audience through time 
and space. The chorus of " Romeo and Juliet," which 
was retained perhaps as a relic of ancient usage, is only 
a poetic ornament, quite unconnected with the action of 
the play. After the production of " Pericles," dumb 
pageants completely disappeared ; and if the three parts 
of " Henry VI." do not attest, by their power of com- 
position, a close relationship to Shakspeare's system, 
nothing at least, in their material forms, is out of 
harmony with it. 

Of these three pieces, the first has been absolutely 
denied to Shakspeare ; and it is, in my opinion, equally 
difficult to believe that it is entirely his composition, 
and that the admirable scene between Talbot and his 
son does not bear the impress of his hand. Two old 
dramas, printed in 1600, contain the plan and even 
numerous details of the second and third parts of 
" Henry VI." These two original works were long 
attributed to our poet, as a first essay which he 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 75 

afterwards perfected. But this opinion will not bear an 
attentive examination ; and all the probabilities, both 
literary and historical, unite in granting to Shakspeare, 
in the last two parts of " Henry VI.," no other share 
than that of a more important and extensive remodelling 
than he was able to bestow upon other works submitted 
to his correction. Brilliant developments, imagery con- 
ceived with tasfe and followed up with skill, and a lofty, 
animated, and picturesque style, are the characteristics 
which distinguish the great poet's work from the primi- 
tive production which he had merely beautified with 
his magnificent colouring. As regards their plan and 
arrangement, the original pieces have undergone no 
change ; and even after the composition of the three 
parts of " Henry VI.," Shakspeare might still speak 
of the "Venus and Adonis" as the " first heir of his 
invention." 

But when will this invention finally display itself in 
all its freedom ? When will Shakspeare walk alone on 
that stage on which he is to achieve such mighty pro- 
gress ? Some of his biographers place the " Comedy of 
Errors," and " Love's Labour Lost," — the first two 
works the honours and criticisms of which he has to 
share with no one — before " Henry VI." in order of 
time. In this unimportant discussion, one fact alone is 
certain, and becomes a new subject of surprise. The 
first dramatic work which the imagination of Shakspeare 
truly produced was a comedy • and this comedy will be 



76 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

followed by others : lie has at last taken wing, bnt not 
as yet towards the realms of tragedy. Corneille also 
began with comedy, but he was then ignorant of his 
own powers, and almost ignorant of the drama. The 
familiar scenes of life had alone presented themselves to 
his thoughts j and the scenes of his comedies are laid 
in his native town, in the Galerie du Palais, and in the 
Place Roy ale. His subjects are timidly borrowed from 
surrounding circumstances ; he has not yet risen above 
himself, or transcended his limited sphere ; his vision 
has not yet penetrated into those ideal regions in which 
his imagination will one day roam at will. But Shak- 
speare is already a poet ; imitation no longer trammels 
his progress ; and his conceptions are no longer formed 
exclusively within the world of his habits. How was 
it that the frivolous spirit of comedy was his first guide 
in that poetic world from which he drew his inspiration ? 
Why did not the emotions of tragedy first awaken the 
powers of so eminently tragic a poet? Was it this 
circumstance which led Johnson to give this singular 
opinion i fi Shakspeare's tragedy seems to be skill \ his 
comedy to be instinct?" 

Assuredly, nothing can be more whimsical than to 
refuse to Shakspeare the instinct of tragedy; and if 
Johnson had had any feeling of it himself, such an idea 
would never have entered his mind. The fact which I 
have just stated, however, is not open to doubt ; it is 
well deserving of explanation, and has its causes in the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 77 

very nature of comedy, as it was understood and treated 
by Shakspeare. 

Shakspeare's comedy is not, in fact, the comedy of 
Moliere ; nor is it that of Aristophanes, or of the Latin 
poets. Among the Greeks, and in Prance, in modern 
times, comedy was the offspring of a free but attentive 
observation of the real world, and its object was to 
bring its featured on the stage. The distinction between 
the tragic and the comic styles is met with almost in 
the cradle of dramatic art, and their separation has 
always become more distinctly marked during the 
course of their progress. The principle of this distinc- 
tion is contained in the very nature of things. The 
destiny and nature of man, his passions and affairs, 
characters and events, — all things within and around us, 
— have their serious and their amusing sides, and may be 
considered and described under either of these points of 
view. This twofold aspect of man and the world has 
opened to dramatic poetry two careers naturally dis- 
tinct ; but in dividing its powers to traverse them both, 
art has neither separated itself from realities, nor 
ceased to observe and reproduce them. Whether 
Aristophanes attacks, with the most fantastic liberty of 
imagination, the vices or follies of the Athenians; or 
whether Moliere depicts the absurdities of credulity and 
avarice, of jealousy and pedantry, and ridicules the 
frivolity of courts, the vanity of citizens, and even the 
affectation of virtues, it matters little that there is a 



78 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

difference between the subjects, in the delineation of 
which the two poets have employed their powers; it 
matters little that one brought public life and the whole 
nation on the stage, whilst the other merely described 
incidents of private life, the interior arrangements of 
families, and the nonsensicality of individual characters ; 
this difference in the materials of comedy arises from 
the difference of time, place, and state of civilisation. 
But, in both Aristophanes and Moliere, realities always 
constitute the substance of the picture. The manners 
and ideas of their times, the vices and follies of their 
fellow-citizens — in a word, the nature and life of man — 
are always the stimulus and nutriment of their poetic 
vein. Comedy thus takes its origin in the world which 
surrounds the poet, and is connected, much more closely 
than tragedy, with external and real facts. 

The Greeks, whose mind and civilisation followed so 
regular a course in their development, did not combine 
the two kinds of composition, and the distinction which 
separates them in nature was maintained without effort 
in art. Simplicity prevailed among this people ; society 
was not abandoned by them to a state of conflict and 
incoherence ; and their destiny did not pass away in pro- 
tracted obscurity, in the midst of contrasts, and a prey to 
dark and deep uneasiness. They grew and shone in their 
land just as the sun rose and pursued its course through 
the skies which overshadowed them. National perils, in- 
testine discord, and civil wars agitated the life of a man 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 79 

in those days, without disturbing his imagination, and 
without opposing or deranging the natural and easy course 
of his thoughts. The reflex influence of this general 
harmony was diffused over literature and the arts. Styles 
of composition spontaneously became distinguished from 
each other, according to the principles upon which they 
depended, and the impressions which they aspired to 
produce. The 1 sculptor chiselled isolated statues or 
innumerous groups, and did not aim at composing 
violent scenes or vast pictures out of blocks of marble. 
iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides undertook to excite 
the people by the narration of the mighty destinies of 
heroes and of kings. Cratinus and Aristophanes aimed 
at diverting them by the representation of the absurdi- 
ties of their contemporaries, or of their own follies. 
These natural classifications corresponded with the 
entire system of social order, with the state of the minds 
of the age, and with the instincts of public taste — which 
would have been shocked at their violation, which 
desired to yield itself without uncertainty or partici- 
pation to a single impression, or a single pleasure, and 
which would have rejected all those unnatural mixtures 
and uncongenial combinations to which their attention had 
never been called, or their judgment accustomed. Thus 
every art and every style received its free and isolated 
development, within the limits of its proper mission. 
Thus tragedy and comedy shared man and the world 
between them, each taking a different domain in the 



80 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

region of realities, and coming by turns to offer to the 
serious or mirthful consideration of a people who inva- 
riably insisted upon simplicity and harmony, the poetic 
effects which their skill could derive from the materials 
placed in their hands. 

In our modern world, all things have borne another 
character. Order, regularity, natural and easy develop- 
ment, seem to have been banished from it. Immense 
interests, admirable ideas, sublime sentiments, have been 
thrown, as it were, pell-mell with brutal passions, coarse 
necessities, and vulgar habits. Obscurity, agitation, 
and disturbance have reigned in minds as well as in 
States. Nations have been formed, not of freemen and 
slaves, but of a confused mixture of diverse, complicated 
classes, ever engaged in conflict and labour ; a violent 
chaos, which civilisation, after long-continued efforts, 
has not yet succeeded in reducing to complete harmony. 
Social conditions, separated by power, but united in a 
common barbarism of manners ; the germ of loftiest 
moral truths fermenting in the midst of absurd igno- 
rance ; great virtues applied in opposition to all reason ; 
shameful vices maintained and defended with hauteur ; 
an indocile honour, ignorant of the simplest delicacies of 
honesty ; boundless servility, accompanied by measure- 
less pride : in fine, the incoherent assemblage of all that 
human nature and destiny contain of that which is great 
and little, noble and trivial, serious and puerile, strong 
and wretched, — this is what man and society have been 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 81 

in our Europe ; this is the spectacle which has appeared 
on the theatre of the world. 

In such a state of mind and things, how was it 
possible for a clear distinction and simple classification 
of styles and arts to be effected ? How could tragedy 
and comedy have presented and formed themselves 
isolatedly in literature, when, in reality, they were inces- 
santly in contact, entwined in the same facts, and 
intermingled in the same actions, so thoroughly, that it 
was sometimes difficult to discern the moment of 
passage from one to the other. Neither the rational 
principle, nor the delicate feeling which separate them, 
could attain any development in minds which were 
incapacitated from apprehending them by the disorder 
and rapidity of different or opposite impressions. Was 
it proposed to bring upon the stage the habitual occur- 
rences of ordinary life? Taste was as easily satisfied as 
manners. Those religious performances which were the 
origin of the European theatre, had not escaped this 
admixture. Christianity is a popular religion • into the 
abyss of terrestrial miseries, its divine founder came in 
search of men, to draw them to himself ; its early history 
is a history of poor, sick, and feeble men • it existed at 
first for a long while in obscurity, and afterwards in the 
midst of persecutions, despised and proscribed by turns, 
and exposed to all the vicissitudes and efforts of a 
humble and violent destiny. Uncultivated imagina- 
tions easily seized upon the triviality which might be 



82 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

intermingled with the incidents of this history ; the gospel, 
the acts of martyrs, and the lives of saints, would have 
struck them much less powerfully if they had seen only 
their tragic aspect or their rational truths. The first 
Mysteries brought simultaneously upon the stage the 
emotions of religious terror and tenderness, and the 
buffooneries of vulgar comicality ; and thus, in the very 
cradle of dramatic poetry, tragedy and comedy con- 
tracted that alliance which was inevitably forced upon 
them by the general condition of nations and of minds. 

In France, however, this alliance was speedily broken 
off. From causes which are connected with the entire 
history of our civilisation, the French people have 
always taken extreme pleasure in drollery. Of this, our 
literature has from time to time given evidence. This 
craving for gaiety, and for gaiety without alloy, early 
supplied the inferior classes of our countrymen with 
their comic farces, into which nothing was admitted that 
had not a tendency to excite laughter. In the infancy 
of the art, comedy in France may very possibly have 
invaded the domain of tragedy, but tragedy had no right 
to the field which comedy had reserved to itself ; and in 
the piteous Moralities and pompous Tragedies which 
princes caused to be represented in their palaces, and 
rectors in their colleges, the trivially comic element long 
retained a place which was inexorably refused to the 
tragic element in the buffooneries with which the people 
were amused. We may therefore affirm that, in France, 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 



comedy, in an imperfect, but distinct form, was created 
before tragedy. At a later period, the rigorous sepa- 
ration of classes, the absence of popular institutions, the 
regular action of the supreme power, the establishment 
of a more exact and uniform system of public order than 
existed in any other country, the habits and influence of 
the Court, and a variety of other causes, disposed the 
popular mind to maintain that strict distinction between 
the two styles which was ordained by the classical 
authorities, who held undisputed sway over our drama. 
Then arose amongst us true and great comedy, as 
conceived by Moliere ; and as it was in accordance with 
our manners, as well as with the rules of the art, to 
strike out a new path,— as, while adapting itself to the 
precepts of antiquity, it did not fail to derive its subjects 
and colouring from the facts and personages of the 
surrounding world, our comedy suddenly rose to a pitch 
of perfection which, in my opinion, has never been 
attained by any other country in any other age. To 
place himself in the interior of families, and thereby to 
gain the immense advantage of a variety of ideas and 
conditions, which extends the domain of art without 
injuring the simplicity of the effects which it produces ; 
to find in man passions sufficiently strong, and caprices 
sufficiently powerful to sway his whole destiny, and yet 
to limit their influence to the suggestion of those errors 
which may make man ridiculous, without ever touching 
upon those which would render him miserable ; to 

G 2 



84 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

describe an individual as labouring under that excess of 
pre-occupation which, diverting him from all other 
thoughts, abandons him entirely to the guidance of the 
idea which possesses him, and yet to throw in his way 
only those interests which are sufficiently frivolous to 
enable him to compromise them without danger ; to 
depict, in " Tartuffe," the threatening knavery of the 
hypocrite, and the dangerous imbecility of the dupe, in 
such a manner as merely to divert the spectator, without 
incurring any of the odious consequences of such a 
position; to give a comic character, in the "Misan- 
thrope," to those feelings which do most honour to the 
human race, by condemning them to confinement within 
the dimensions of the existence of a courtier ; and thus 
to reach the amusing by means of the serious ; to 
extract food for mirth from the inmost recesses of 
human nature, and incessantly to maintain the character 
of comedy while bordering upon the confines of tragedy : 
— this is what Moliere has done, this is the difficult and 
original style which he bestowed upon Prance ; and 
France alone, in my opinion, could have given dramatic 
art this tendency, and Moliere. 

Nothing of this kind took place among the English, 
The asylum of German manners, as well as of German 
liberties, England pursued, without obstacle, the irregular, 
but natural course of the civilisation which such 
elements could not fail to engender. It retained then* 
disorder as well as their energy, and, until the middle 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 85 

of the seventeenth century, its literature, as well as its 
institutions, was the sincere expression of these qualities. 
When the English drama attempted to reproduce the 
poetic image of the world, tragedy and comedy were not 
separated. The predominance of the popular taste 
sometimes carried tragic representations to a pitch of 
atrocity which was unknown in Prance, even in the 
rudest essays of dramatic art ; and the influence of the 
clergy, by purging the comic stage of that excessive 
immorality which it exhibited elsewhere, also deprived it 
of that malicious and sustained gaiety which constitutes 
the essence of true comedy. The habits of mind which 
were entertained among the people by the minstrels and 
then ballads, allowed the introduction, even into those 
compositions which were most exclusively devoted to 
nmihfulness, of some touches of those emotions which 
"comedy in France can never admit without losing 
its name, and becoming melodrama. Among truly 
national works, the only thoroughly comic play which 
the English, stage possessed before the time of Shak- 
speare, " Gammer Gurton's Needle/ 5 was composed for 
a college, and modelled in accordance with the classic 
rules. The vague titles given to dramatic works, such 
as play, interlude, Idstonj, or even ballad, scarcely ever 
indicate any distinction of style, Thus, between that 
which was called tragedy, and that which was sometimes 
named comedy, the only essential difference consisted in 
the denouement, according to the principles laid down 



86 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

in the fifteenth century by the monk Lydgate, who 
" defines a comedy to begin with complaint and to end 
with gladness, whereas tragedy begins in prosperity and 
ends in adversity." 

Thus, at the advent of Shakspeare, the nature and 
destiny of man, which constitute the materials of dra- 
matic poetry, were not divided or classified into different 
branches of art. When art desired to introduce them 
on the stage, it accepted them in their entirety, with all 
the mixtures and contrasts which they present to obser- 
vation ; nor was the public taste inclined to complain of 
this. The comic portion of human realities had a right 
to take its place wherever its presence was demanded or 
permitted by truth; and such was the character of 
civilisation, that tragedy, by admitting the comic 
element, did not derogate from truth in the slightest 
degree. In such a condition of the stage and of the 
public mind, what could be the state of comedy, pro- 
perly so called ? How could it be permitted to claim 
to bear a particular name, and to form a distinct style ? 
It succeeded in this attempt by boldly leaving those 
realities in which its natural domain was neither 
respected nor acknowledged • it did not limit its efforts 
to the delineation of settled manners or of consistent 
characters • it did not propose to itself to represent men 
and things under a ridiculous but truthful aspect ; but 
it became a fantastic and romantic work, the refuge of 
those amusing improbabilities which, in its idleness or 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 87 

folly, the imagination delights to connect together by a 
slight thread, in order to form from them combinations 
capable of affording diversion or interest, without calling 
for the judgment of the reason. Graceful pictures, 
surprises, the curiosity which attaches to the progress of 
an intrigue, mistakes, quid-pro-quos, all the witticisms 
of parody and travestie, formed the substance of this 
inconsequent diversion. The conformation of the 
Spanish plays, a taste for which was beginning to 
prevail in England, supplied these gambols of the 
imagination with abundant frameworks and alluring 
models. Next to their chronicles and ballads, collec- 
tions of French or Italian tales, together with the 
romances of chivalry, formed the favourite reading of 
the people. Is it strange that so productive a mine, 
and so easy a style, should first have attracted the 
attention of Shakspeare ? Can we feel astonished that 
his young and brilliant imagination hastened to wander 
at will among such subjects, free from the yoke of pro- 
babilities, and excused from seeking after serious and 
vigorous combinations? The great poet, whose mind 
and hand proceeded, it is said, with such equal rapidity 
that his manuscript scarcely contained a single erasure, 
doubtless yielded with delight to those unrestrained 
gambols in which he could display without labour his 
rich and varied faculties. He could put anything he 
pleased into his comedies, and he has, in fact, put 
everything into them, with the exception of one thing 



83 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

which was incompatible with such a system, namely, the 
ensemble which, making every part concur towards the 
same end, reveals at every step the depth of the plan, 
and the grandeur of the work. It would be difficult to 
find in Shakspeare's tragedies a single conception, posi- 
tion, act, or passion, or degree of vice or virtue, which 
may not also be met with in some one of his comedies ; 
but that which in his tragedies is carefully thought out, 
fruitful in result, and intimately connected with the 
series of causes and effects, is in his comedies only just 
indicated, and offered to our sight for a moment to 
dazzle us with a passing gleam, and soon to disappear 
in a new combination. In " Measure for Measure," 
Angelo, the unworthy governor of Vienna, after having 
condemned Claudio to death for the crime. of having 
seduced a young girl whom he intended to marry, him-, 
self attempts to seduce Isabella, the sister of Claudio, 
by promising her brother's pardon as a recompense for 
her own dishonour ; and when, by Isabella's address in 
substituting another girl in her place, he thinks he has 
received the price of his infamous bargain, he gives 
orders to hasten Claudio 's execution. Is not this 
tragedy ? Such a fact might well be placed in the life 
of Richard the Third ; and no crime of Macbeth' s pre- 
sents this excess of wickedness. But in " Macbeth" 
and " Richard III.," crime produces the tragic effect 
which belongs to it, because it bears the impress of 
probability, and because real forms and colours attest 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 89 

its presence : we can discern the place which it occupies 
in the heart of which it has taken possession : we know 
how it gained admission, what it has conquered, and 
what remains for it to subjugate : we behold it incorpo- 
rating itself by degrees into the unhappy being whom it 
has subdued : we see it living, walking, and breathing, 
with a man who lives, walks, and breathes, and thus 
communicates to it his character, his own individuality. 
In Angelo, crime is only a vague abstraction, connected 
en passant with a proper name, with no other motive 
than the necessity of making that person commit a 
certain action which shall produce a certain position, 
from which the poet intends to derive certain effects. 
Angelo is not presented to us at the outset either as a 
rascal or as a hypocrite ; on the contrary, he is a man 
of exaggeratedly severe virtue. But the progress of the 
poem requires that he should become criminal, and 
criminal he becomes ; when his crime is committed, 
he will repent of it as soon as the poet pleases, and 
will find himself able to resume without effort the 
natural course of his life, which had been interrupted 
only for a moment. 

Thus, in Shakspeare's comedy, the whole of human 
life passes before the eyes of the spectator, reduced to a 
sort of phantasmagoria — a brilliant and uncertain reflec- 
tion of the realities pomtrayed in his tragedy. Just 
when the truth seems on the point of allowing itself to 
be caught, the image grows pale, and vanishes ; its part 



90 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

is played, and it disappears. In the " Winter's Tale," 
Leontes is as jealous, sanguinary, and unmerciful as 
Othello ; but his jealousy, born suddenly from a mere 
caprice at the moment when it is necessary that the plot 
should thicken, loses its fury and suspicion as suddenly, 
as soon as the action has reached the point at which 
it becomes requisite to change the situation. In 
"Cymbeline" — which, notwithstanding its title, ought 
to be numbered among the comedies, as the piece is 
conceived in entire accordance with the same system — 
Iachimo's conduct is just as knavish and perverse as 
that of Iago in " Othello ;" but his character does not 
explain his conduct, or, to speak more correctly, he has 
no character \ and, always ready to cast off the rascal's 
cloak, in which the poet has enveloped him, as soon as 
the plot reaches its term, and the confession of the 
secret, which he alone can reveal, becomes necessary to 
terminate the misunderstanding between Posthumus 
and Imogen, which he alone has caused, he does not 
even wait to be asked, but by a spontaneous avowal, 
deserves to be included in that general amnesty which 
should form the conclusion of every comedy. 

I might multiply these examples to infinity; they 
abound not only in Shakspeare's early comedies, but 
also in those which succeeded the composition of his 
best tragedies. In all, we should find characters as 
unstable as passions, and resolutions as changeful as 
characters. Do not expect to find probability, or 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 91 

consecutiveness, or profound study of man and society • 
the poet cares little for these things, and invites you to 
follow his example. To interest by the development of 
positions, to divert by variety of pictures, and to charm 
by the poetic richness of details — this is what he aims 
at ; these are the pleasures which he offers. There 
is no interdependence, no concatenation of events and 
ideas ; vices, virtues, inclinations, intentions, all become 
changed and transformed at every step. Even absurdity 
does not always continue to characterise the individual 
whom it distinguishes at the outset. In " Cymbeline," 
the imbecile Cloten becomes almost proud and noble 
when opposing the independence of a British prince to 
the threats of a Roman ambassador ; and in " Measure 
for Measure," Elbow the constable, whose nonsensical- 
ities furnish the diversion of one scene, speaks almost 
like a man of sense when, in a subsequent scene, 
another person is appointed to enliven the dialogue. 
Thus negligent and truant is the flight of the poet 
through these capricious compositions ! Thus fugitive 
are the light creations with which, he has animated 
them! 

But then, what gracefulness and rapidity of move- 
ment, what variety of forms and effects, what brilliancy 
of wit, imagination, and poetry, — all employed to make 
us forget the monotony of their romantic framework ! 
Doubtless, this is not comedy as we conceive it, and as 
Moliere wrote it ; but who but Shakspeare could have 



92 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

diffused such treasures over so frivolous and fantastic a 
style of comedy ? The legends and tales upon which 
his plays are founded have given birth, both before and 
after him, to thousands of dramatic works which are 
now plunged in well -merited oblivion. A king of 
Sicily, jealous, without knowing why, of a king of 
Bohemia, determines to put his wife to death and to 
expose his daughter ; this child, left to perish on the 
shore of Bohemia, but saved by a shepherd from her 
cruel fate, becomes, after sixteen years have elapsed, a 
marvellous beauty, and is beloved by the heir to the 
crown • after all the obstacles naturally opposed to 
their union, arrives the ordinary denouement of expla- 
nations and recognitions. This story truly combines 
all the most common and least probable features of 
the romances, tales, and pastorals of the time. But 
Shakspeare takes it, and the absurd fable that opens 
the "Winter's Tale" becomes interesting by the brutal 
truthfulness of the jealous transports of Leontes, the 
amiable character of little Mamillius, the patient virtue 
of Hermione, and the generous inflexibility of Paulina ; 
and, in the second part, the rural festival, with its 
gaiety and joyous incidents, and, amid the rustic scene, 
the charming figure of Perdita, combining with the 
modesty of a humble shepherdess the moral elegance of 
the superior classes, assuredly present the most piquant 
and graceful picture that truth could furnish to poetry. 
What particular charm is there in the nuptials of 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 93 

Theseus and Hippolyta, and the hackneyed incident of 
two pairs of lovers rendered unhappy by one another ? 
It is only a worn-out combination, destitute alike of 
interest and truth. Yet Shakspeare has made of it his 
" Midsummer Night's Dream ;" and in the midst of 
the dull intrigue, he introduces Oberon with his elves 
and fairies, who^live upon flowers, run upon the blades 
of grass, dance in the rays of the moon, play with the 
light of the morning, and fly away, " following darkness 
like a team," as soon as Aurora's first doubtful rays 
begin to glimmer in the sky. Their employments, 
pleasures, and tricks, occupy the scene, participate in all 
its incidents, and entwine in the same action the 
mournful destinies of the four lovers and the grotesque 
performances of a troop of artisans • and after having 
fled away at the approach of the sun, when Night once 
more enshrouds earth in her sombre mantle, they will 
resume possession of that fantastic world into which we 
have been transported by this amazing and brilliant 
extravaganza. 

In truth, it would be acting very rigorously towards 
ourselves, and very ungratefully towards genius, to 
refuse to follow it somewhat blindly when it invites us 
to a scene of such attraction. Are originality, simplicity, 
gaiety, and gracefulness, so common that we shall treat 
them severely because they are lavished on a slight 
foundation of but little value ? Is it nothing to enjoy 
the divine charm of poetry amidst the improbabilities, 



94 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

or, if you will, the absurdities, of romance ? Have we, 
then, lost the happy power of lending ourselves com- 
placently to its caprices ? and do we not possess sufficient 
vivacity of imagination, and youthfulness of feeling, to 
enjoy so delightful a pleasure under whatever form it 
may be offered to us ? 

Five only of Shakspeare's comedies, the " Tempest," 
the " Merry Wives of Windsor, 5 ' " Timon of Athens," 
" Troilus and Cressida," and the " Merchant of Venice," 
have escaped, at least in part, from the influence of the 
romantic taste. Some will perhaps be surprised to 
find this merit ascribed to the " Tempest." Like 
the " Midsummer Night's Dream," the " Tempest " is 
peopled with sylphs and sprites, and everything is 
done under the sway of fairy power. But after 
having laid the action in this unreal world, the poet 
conducts it without inconsistency, complication, or 
languor j none of the sentiments are forced, or cease- 
lessly interrupted; the characters are simple and well- 
sustained; the supernatural power which disposes the 
events undertakes to supply all the necessities of the 
plot, and leaves the personages of the drama at liberty 
to show themselves in their natural character, and to 
swim at ease in that magical atmosphere by which they 
are surrounded, without at all injuring the truthfulness 
of their impressions or ideas. The style is fantastic and 
sprightly ; but, when the supposition is once admitted, 
there is nothing in the work to shock the judgment and 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 95 

disturb the imagination by the incoherence of the effects 
produced. 

In the system of intrigued comedy, the " Merry 
Wives of Windsor " may be said to be almost perfect 
in its composition ; it presents a true picture of 
manners ; the denouement is as piquant as it is well- 
prepared ; and ii is assuredly one of the merriest works 
in the whole comic repertory. Shakspeare evidently 
aspired higher in " Timon of Athens." It is an attempt 
at that scientific style in which the ridiculous is made 
to flow from the serious, and which constitutes la grande 
comedie. The scenes in which Timon's friends excuse 
themselves, under various pretexts, from rendering him 
assistance, are wanting neither in truthfulness nor effect. 
But, then, Timon's misanthropy, as furious as Lis 
confidence had previously been extravagant, — the 
equivocal character of Apemantus, — the abruptness of 
the transitions, and the violence of the sentiments, form 
a picture more melancholy than true, which is scarcely 
softened down enough by the fidelity of the old steward. 
Though far inferior to " Timon," the drania of " Troilus 
and Cressida" is nevertheless skilfully conceived; it is 
based upon the resolution taken by the Grecian chiefs 
to flatter the stupid pride of Ajax, and make him the 
hero of the army, in order to humble the haughty 
disdainfulness of Achilles, and to obtain from his 
jealousy that which he had refused to their prayers. 
But the idea is more comic than its execution ; and 



96 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

neither the buffooneries of Thersites, nor the truthfulness 
of the part played by Pandarus, are sufficient to impart 
to the piece that mirthful physiognomy without which 
comedy is impossible. 

These four works, which are less akin than his other 
comedies to the romantic system, also belong more 
completely to Shakspeare' s invention. The " Merry 
Wives of Windsor " is an original creation ; no tale 
has been discovered from which Shakspeare could have 
borrowed the subject of the " Tempest ;" the composition 
of " Timon of Athens " is indebted in no respect to 
Plutarch's account of that misanthrope ; and in "Troilus 
and Cressicla," Shakspeare has copied Chaucer in a very 
few particulars. 

The story of the " Merchant of Venice" is of an en- 
tirely romantic character, and was selected by Shak- 
speare, like the "Winter's Tale," "Much Ado about 
Nothing," " Measure for Measure," and other plays, 
merely that he might adorn it with the graceful brilliancy 
of his poetry. But one incident of the subject con- 
ducted Shakspeare to the confines of tragedy, and he 
suddenly became aware of his domain ; he entered into 
that real world in which the comic and the tragic are 
commingled, and, when depicted with equal truthfulness, 
concur by their combination to increase the power of the 
effect produced. What can be more striking, in this 
style of dramatic composition, than the part assigned to 
Shylock ? This son of a degraded race has all the vices 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 97 

and passions which are engendered by such a position ; 
his origin has made him what he is, sordid and 
malignant, fearful and pitiless ; he does not think of 
emancipating himself from the rigours of the law, but 
he is delighted at being able to invoke it for once, in 
all its severity, in order to appease the thirst for 
vengeance which* devours him ; and when, in the 
judgment scene, after having made us tremble for the 
life of the virtuous Antonio, Shylock finds the exactitude 
of that law, in which he triumphed with such barbarity, 
turned unexpectedly against himself, — when he feels 
himself overwhelmed at once by the danger and the 
ridicule of his position, two opposite feelings, — mirth 
and emotion, — arise almost simultaneously in the breast 
of the spectator. What a singular proof is this of the 
general disposition of Shakspeare's mind ! He has 
treated the whole of the romantic part of the drama 
without any intermixture of comedy, or even of gaiety ; 
and we can discern true comedy only when we meet 
with Shylock, — that is, with tragedy. 

It is utterly futile to attempt to base any classification of 
Shakspeare's works on the distinction between the comic 
and tragic elements ; they cannot possibly be divided 
into these two styles, but must be separated into the 
fantastic and the real, the romance and the world. The 
first class contains most of his comedies ; the second 
comprehends all his tragedies, — immense and living- 
stages, upon which all things are represented, as it 



98 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

were, in their solid form, and in the place which they 
occnpied in a stormy and complicated state of civilisa- 
tion. In these dramas, the comic element is introdnced 
whenever its character of reality gives it the right of 
admission and the advantage of opportune appearance. 
FalstafY appears in the train of Henry V., and Doll 
Tear-Sheet in the train of Falstaff; the people surround 
the kings, and the soldiers crowd around their generals ; 
all conditions of society, all the phases of human destiny 
appear by turns in juxtaposition, with the nature which 
properly belongs to them, and in the position which they 
naturally occupy. The tragic and comic elements some- 
times combine in the same individual, and are developed 
in succession in the same character. The impetuous 
pre-occupation of Hotspur is amusing when it prevents 
him from listening to any other voice than his own, and 
substitutes his sentiments and words in the place of the 
things which his friends are desirous to tell him, and 
which he is equally anxious to learn ; but it becomes 
serious and fatal when it leads him to adopt, without 
due examination, a dangerous project which suddenly 
inspires him with the idea of glory. The perverse 
obstinacy which renders him so comical in his dealings 
with the boastful and vainglorious Glendower, will be 
the tragical cause of his ruin when, in contempt of all 
reason and advice, and unaided by any succour, he 
hastens to the battle-field, upon which, ere long, left 
alone, he looks around and sees nought but death. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 99 

Thus we find the entire world, the whole of human 
realities, reproduced by Shakspeare in tragedy, which, 
in his eyes, was the universal theatre of life and truth. 

In the year 1595, at latest, " Romeo and Juliet" had 
appeared. This work was succeeded, almost without 
interruption, until 1599, by " Hamlet," " King John," 
"Richard II.," %e Richard III.," the two parts of 
" Henry IV.," and " Henry V." From 1599 to 1605, 
the chronological order of Shakspeare' s works contains 
none but comedies and the play of " Henry VIII." 
After 1605, tragedy regains the ascendant in " King 
Lear," " Macbeth," " Julius Caesar," " Antony and 
Cleopatra," " Coriolanus," and "Othello." The first 
period, we perceive, belongs rather to historical plays ; 
and the second to tragedy properly so called, the 
subjects of which, not being taken from the positive 
history of England, allowed the poet a wider field, and 
permitted the free manifestation of all the originality of 
his nature. Historical dramas, generally designated by 
the name of Histories, had enjoyed possession of popular 
favour for nearly twenty years. Shakspeare emancipated 
himself but slowly from the taste of his age ; though 
always displaying more grandeur, and gaining greater 
approbation in proportion as he abandoned himself with 
greater freedom to the guidance of his own instinct, — he 
was nevertheless always careful to accommodate his 
progress to the advancement of his audience in their 
appreciation of his art. It appears certain, from the 

H 2 



TOO SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

dates of his plays, that he never composed a single 
tragedy until some other poet had, as it were, felt the 
pulse of the public on the same subject ; just as though 
he were conscious that he possessed within himself a 
superiority which, before it could be trusted to the taste 
of the multitude, required the exercise of a vulgar caution. 
It cannot be doubted that, between historical dramas 
and tragedies, properly so called, Shakspeare's genius 
inclined in preference towards the latter class. The 
general and unvarying opinion which has placed 
" Romeo and Juliet," " Hamlet," " King Lear," 
" Macbeth," and " Othello," at the head of his works, 
would suffice to prove this. Among his national 
dramas, " Richard III." is the only one which has 
attained the same rank, and this is an additional 
proof of the truth of my assertion ; for it is the only 
work which Shakspeare was able to conduct, in the 
same manner as his tragedies, by the influence of a 
single character or idea. Herein resides the funda- 
mental difference between the two kinds of dramatic 
works ; in one class, events pursue their course, and the 
poet accompanies them ; in the other, events group them- 
selves around a man, and seem to serve only to bring 
him into bold relief. "Julius Caesar" is a true tragedy, 
and yet the progress of the piece is framed in accordance 
with Plutarch's narrative, just as " King John," 
"Richard II," and " Henry IV.," are made to coincide 
with Holinshed's Chronicles j but in the first-named 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 101 

piece, Brutus imparts to the play the unity of a great 
individual character. In the same manner, the history 
of " Richard III." is entirely his own history, the work 
of his design and will ; whereas, the history of the other 
kings with whom Shakspeare has peopled his dramas is 
only a part, and frequently the smallest part, of the 
picture of the events of their time. 

This arises from the fact that events were not what 
chiefly occupied Shakspeare' s mind ; his special attention 
was bestowed upon the men who occasioned them. He 
establishes his domain, not in historical, but in dramatic 
truth. Give him a fact to represent upon the stage, 
and he will not inquire minutely into the circumstances 
which accompanied it, or into the various and multiplied 
causes which may have combined to produce it ; his 
imagination will not require an exact picture of the time 
or place in which it occurred, or a complete acquaintance 
with the infinite combinations of which the mysterious 
web of destiny is composed. These constitute only the 
materials of the drama ; and Shakspeare will not look 
to them to furnish it with vitality. He takes the fact as 
it is related to him ; and, guided by this thread, he 
descends into the depths of the human soul. It is man 
that he wishes to resuscitate ; it is man whom he 
interrogates regarding the secret of his impressions, 
inclinations, ideas, and volitions. He does not inquire, 
"What hast thou done?" but, " How art thou consti- 
tuted ? Whence originated the part thou hast taken in 



102 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

the events in which I find thee concerned? What wert 
thou seeking after ? What couldst thou do ? Who art 
thou ? Let me know thee ; and then I shall know in 
what respects thy history is important to me." 

Thus we may explain that depth of natural truth 
which reveals itself, in Shakspeare's works, even to the 
least practised eyes, and that somewhat frequent absence 
of local truth which he would have been able to delineate 
with equal excellence if he had studied it with equal 
assiduity. Hence, also, arises that difference of concep- 
tion which is observable between his historical dramas 
and his tragedies. Composed in accordance with a plan 
more national than dramatic, written beforehand in 
some sort by events well known in all their details, and 
already in possession of the stage under determinate 
forms, most of his historical plays could not be subjected 
to that individual unity which Shakspeare delighted to 
render dominant in his compositions, but which so rarely 
holds sway in the actual narratives of history. Every 
man has usually a very small share in the events in 
which he has taken part ; and the brilliant position 
which rescues a name from oblivion has not always 
preserved the man who bore it from sinking into a 
nullity. Kings especially, who are forced to appear upon 
the stage of the world independently of their aptitude 
to perform their part upon it, frequently afford less 
assistance than embarrassment to the conduct of an 
historical action. Most of the princes whose reigns 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 103 

furnished Shakspeare with his national dramas, un- 
doubtedly exercised some influence upon their own 
history ; but none of them, with the exception of 
Richard III., wrought it out entirely for himself. 
Shakspeare would have sought in vain to discover, in 
their conduct and personal nature, that sole cause of 
events, that simple and pregnant truth, which was called 
for by the instinct of his genius. Whilst, therefore, in 
his tragedies, a moral position, or a strongly conceived 
character, binds and confines the action in a powerful 
knot, from whence the facts as well as the sentiments of 
the drama issue to return thither again, his historical 
plays contain a multitude of incidents and scenes which 
are destined rather to fill up the action than to facilitate 
its progress. As events pass in succession before his 
view, Shakspeare stops them to catch some few details, 
which suffice to determine their character; and these 
details he derives, not from the lofty or general causes of 
the facts, but from their practical and familiar results. 
An historical event may originate in a very exalted 
source, but it always descends to a very low position ; 
it matters little that its sources be concealed in the 
elevated summits of social order, it ever reaches its 
consummation in the popular masses, producing among 
them a widely-diffused and manifest effect and feeling. 
At this point, Shakspeare seems to wait for events, and 
here he takes his stand to portray them. The inter- 
vention of the people, who bear so heavy a part of the 



104 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

weight of history, is assuredly legitimate, at least in 
historical representations. It was, moreover, necessary 
to Shakspeare. Those partial pictures of private or 
popular history, which lie far behind its great events, 
are brought by Shakspeare to the front of the stage, 
and placed in prominent relief ; indeed, we feel that he 
relies upon them to impart to his work the form and 
colouring of reality. The invasion of France, the battle 
of Agincourt, the marriage of a daughter of Prance to 
a king of England, in whose favour the French 
monarch disinherits the Dauphin, are not sufficient, in 
his opinion, to occupy the whole of the historical drama 
of " Henry V." j so he summons to his aid the comic 
erudition of the brave Welshman, Eluellen, the con- 
versations of the King with the soldiers, Pistol, Nym, 
and Bardolph, all the subaltern movement of an army, 
and even the joyous loves of Katharine and Henry. In 
the two parts of " Henry IV.," the comedy is more 
closely connected with the events, and yet it does not 
emanate from them. Even if EalstafF and his crew 
occupied less space, the principal facts would not be less 
determinate, and would not follow another course ; but 
these facts have only supplied Shakspeare with the 
external conformation of the drama ; the incidents of 
private life, the comic details, Hotspur and his wife, and 
Ealstaff and his companions, give it life and animation. 

In true tragedy, every circumstance assumes another 
character and another aspect ; no incident is isolated, or 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 105 

alien to the very substance of the drama ; no link is 
slight or fortuitous. The events grouped around the 
principal personage present themselves to view with the 
importance which they derive from the impression that 
he receives of them • to him they address themselves, 
and from him they proceed ; he is the beginning and 
the end, the instrument and the object of the decrees 
of God, who, in the world which He has created for 
man, wills that everything should be done by the hands 
of man, and nothing according to his designs, God 
employs the hiunan will to accomplish intentions which 
man never entertained, and allows him to proceed freely 
towards a goal which he has not selected. But though 
man is exposed to the influence of events, he does not 
fall into subjection to them ; if impotence be his con- 
dition, liberty is his nature ; the feelings, ideas, and 
wishes with which he is inspired by external objects, 
emanate from himself alone ; in him resides an inde- 
pendent and spontaneous power which rejects and defies 
the empire to which his destiny is subjected. Thus was 
the world constituted, and thus has Shakspeare con- 
ceived tragedy. Give him an obscure and remote 
event ; let him be bound to conduct it towards a 
determinate result, through a series of incidents more or 
less known ; amidst these facts he will place a passion 
or a character, and put all the threads of the action into 
the hands of the creature of his own origination. 
Events follow their course, and man enters upon his • 



106 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

he employs his power to divert them from the direction 
which he does not wish them to pursue, to conquer 
them when they thwart him, and to elude them when 
they embarrass him ; he subjects them for a moment to 
his authority, to find them soon acting with greater 
hostility towards him in the new course which he has 
forced them to take ; and at last he succumbs entirely 
in the struggle in which his destiny and his life have 
gone to wreck. 

The power of man in conflict with the power of fate — 
this is the spectacle which fascinated and inspired the 
dramatic genius of Shakspeare. Perceiving it for the 
first time in the catastrophe of " Romeo and Juliet/' he 
felt his will suddenly terror-struck at the aspect of the 
vast disproportion which exists between the efforts 
of man and the inflexibility of destiny — between the 
immensity of our desires and the nullity of our means. 
In " Hamlet," the second of his tragedies, he reproduces 
this picture with a sort of shuddering dread. A feeling 
of duty has prescribed to Hamlet a terrible project ; he 
does not think that anything can permit him to evade 
it ; and from the very outset, he sacrifices everything to 
it — his love, his self-respect, his pleasures, and even the 
studies of his youth. He has now only one object in 
the world, — to prove and punish the crime which had 
caused his father's death. That, in order to accomplish 
this design, he must break the heart of her he loves ; 
that, during the course of the incidents which he 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 107 

originates in order to effect his purpose, a mistake renders 
him the murderer of the inoffensive Polonius; that he 
himself becomes an object of mirth and contempt — he 
cares not, does not even bestow a thought upon it ; 
these are the natural results of his determination, and 
in this determination his whole existence is concentrated. 
But he is desirous to accomplish his plan with certainty; 
he wishes to feel assured that the btow will be legiti- 
mate, and that it will not fail to strike home. Hence- 
forward accumulate in his path those doubts, difficulties 
and obstacles, which the course of things invariably sets 
in opposition to the man who aims at subjecting it to 
his will. By bestowing a less philosophical observation 
upon these impediments, Hamlet would surmount them 
more easily ; but the hesitation and dread which they 
inspire form part of their power, and Hamlet must 
" undergo its entire influence. Nothing, however, can shake 
his resolution, nothing divert him from his purpose ■ he 
advances, slowly it is true, with his eyes constantly fixed 
upon his object : whether he originates an opportunity, 
or merely appropriates one already existing, every step is a 
progress, until he seems to border on the final term of 
his design. But time has had its career ; Providence is at 
its limit ; the events which Hamlet has prepared hasten 
onwards without his co-operation ; they are consum- 
mated by him, and to his own destruction ; and he 
falls a victim to those decrees whose accomplishment 
he has insured, destined to show how little man can 



10S SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

avail to effect, even in that which he most ardently 
desires. 

Already more inured to the contemplation of human 
life, Richard III., at the commencement of his sangui- 
nary career, contemplates, with steady gaze, that 
immense disproportion before which the thought of the 
courageous but inexperienced Hamlet had incessantly 
quailed. Richard merely promises himself greater 
pride and pleasure from the subjugation of this hostile 
power; and resolves to give the lie to fate, which 
appeared to have destined him to abasement and con- 
tempt. In fact, we behold him ruling, like a conqueror, 
the chances of his life ; events spring from his hands, 
bearing the impress of his will; just as his thought 
conceives them, his power accomplishes them ; he com- 
pletes what he has projected, raises his existence to a 
level with his ambition, and falls at the moment 
appointed by inflexible destiny, to render the punish- 
ment of his crimes more striking, by inflicting it in the 
midst of his successes. Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, 
all equally active and blind in the conduct of their 
destiny, bring down upon themselves, in the same 
manner, with all the force of a passionate will, the 
event which is fated to crush them. Brutus dies in 
consequence of the death of Csesar; no one desired 
more than himself the blow which killed him ; no one 
resolved on his death by a freer choice of his reason ; he 
had not, like Hamlet, a ghost to dictate to him his 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 109 

duty; in himself alone he found that severe law to 
which he sacrificed his repose, his affections, and his 
inclinations : no one is more thoroughly master of him- 
self, — and yet, like all the rest, he dies, powerless to resist 
fate. With him perishes the liberty which he aspired to 
save ; the hope of rendering his death useful does not 
even flash across his mind; and yet Shakspeare does not 
make him exclaim when dying, "0 Virtue, thou art only 
an empty name ! " 

And why not ? Because above this terrible conflict 
of man against necessity, soars his moral existence, 
independent and sovereign, free from all the perils of 
the combat. The mighty genius whose view had 
embraced the whole destiny of man, could not have 
failed to recognise its sublime secret ; a sure instinct 
revealed to him this final explanation, without which all 
•is darkness and uncertainty. Furnished, therefore, with 
the moral thread which never breaks in his hands, he 
proceeds with firm step through the embarrassments of 
circumstances and the perplexities of varied feelings ; 
nothing can be simpler at bottom, than Shakspeare's 
action; nothing less complicated than the impression 
which it leaves upon our minds. Our interest is never 
divided, and still less does it waver between two opposite 
inclinations, or two equally powerful affections. As soon 
as the characters become known, and then position is 
developed, our choice is made ; we know what we desire 
and what we fear, whom we hate and whom we love. 



110 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES, 

There is also as little conflict of duties as of interests j 
and the conscience wavers no more than the affections. 
In the midst of political revolutions, in times when 
society is at war with itself, and can no longer guide 
individuals by those laws which it has imposed upon 
them for the maintenance of its unity, then alone does 
Shakspeare's judgment hesitate, and allow ours to hesi- 
tate also ; he can himself no longer accurately determine 
on which side lies the right, or what duty requires, and 
he is therefore unable to tell us. " King John," 
" Richard II.," and the three parts of " Henry VI.," 
furnish examples of this. In every other drama, the 
moral position is evident, free from ambiguity, and 
undisguised by complaisance; the characters are not 
represented as deceiving or deceived, hovering between 
vice and virtue, weakness and crime; what they are, 
they are frankly and openly j their actions are depicted 
in vigorous outlines, so that even the weakest eyesight 
cannot mistake them. And yet — so admirable is his 
perception of truth ! — in. these actions so positive, com- 
plete, and consistent, all the inconsistencies and fantastic 
mixtures of human nature exist and are displayed. 
Macbeth has fully made up his mind to crime ; no link 
binds his conduct any longer to virtue ; and yet who 
can doubt that, in the character of Macbeth, side by 
side with the passions which stimulate him to crime, 
there still exist those inclinations which constitute 
virtue ? The mother of Hamlet has set no bounds to 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. Ill 

her incestuous love ; she knows her crime and boldly 
commits it ; her position is that of a shameless culprit \ 
but her soul is that of a woman capable of loving 
modesty, and finding happiness within the bounds of 
duty. Even Claudius himself, the wretch Claudius, 
would wish to be able still to pray ; he cannot do so, 
but he wishes fre could. Thus the keen vision of the 
philosopher enlightens and directs the imagination of 
the poet • thus man appears to Shakspeare only when 
fully furnished with all that belongs to his nature. The 
truth is always there, before the eyes of the poet • he 
looks down and writes. 

But there is one truth which Shakspeare does not 
observe in this manner, which he derives from himself, 
and without which all the external truths which he 
contemplates would be merely cold and sterile images \ 
and that is, the feeling which these truths excite within 
him. This feeling is the mysterious bond which unites 
us to the outer world, and makes us truly know it ; 
when our mind has taken realities into its consideration, 
our soul is moved by an analogous and spontaneous 
impression ; but for the anger with which we are 
inspired by the sight of crime, whence should we obtain 
the revelation of that element which renders crime odious? 
No one has ever combined, in an equal degree with 
Shakspeare, this double character of an impartial observer 
and a man of profound sensibility. Superior to all by 
his reason, and accessible to all by sympathy, he sees 



112 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

nothing without judging it, and he judges it because he 
feels it. Could any one who did not detest Iago, have 
penetrated, as Shakspeare has done, into the recesses of 
his execrable character ? To the horror with which he 
regards the criminal, must be ascribed the terrible 
energy of the language which he puts into his mouth. 
Who could make us tremble, so much as Lady Macbeth 
herself, at the action for which she prepares with so 
little fear? But when it becomes needful to express 
pity or tenderness, the unrestraint of love, the extrava- 
gance of maternal apprehension, or the stern and deep 
grief of manly affection, — then the observer may quit his 
post, and the judge his tribunal. Shakspeare himself 
develops all the abundance of his nature, and gives 
expression to those familiar feelings of his soul which 
are set in motion by the slightest contact with his 
imagination. Women, children, old men, — who has 
described them with such truthfulness as he ? Where 
the ingenuousness of requited affection given birth to a 
purer flower than Desdemona ? Has old age, when shame- 
fully deserted, and driven to madness by the weakness 
of senility and the violence of grief, ever given utterance 
to more pathetic lamentations than in "King Lear"? 
Who has not felt his heart assailed by all the emotions of 
anguish which childhood can inspire, on beholding the 
scene in which Hubert, in performance of his promise to 
King John, is about to burn out the eyes of young 
Arthur? And if this barbarous project were carried 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 113 

into execution, who could endure it? But, in such a 
case, Shakspeare would not have described the scene. 
There is an excess of grief in presence of which he pauses ; 
he takes pity on himself, and repels impressions too 
powerful to be borne. Scarcely does he permit Juliet to 
utter any words between Borneo's death and her own ; 
Macduff is silent after the massacre of his wife and 
children ; and Constance dies before we are allowed to 
behold the death of Arthur. Othello alone approaches 
the whole of his sufferings without mitigation ; but his 
misfortune was so horrible, when he was ignorant of it, 
that the impression which he receives from it, after the 
discovery of his error, becomes ahnost a consolation. 

Thus moved by all that moves us, Shakspeare obtains 
our confidence - we yield ourselves in security to that 
open soul in which our feelings have already reverbe- 
rated, and to that ready imagination which is as much 
illumined by the splendid sun of Italy as darkened by 
the sombre fogs of Denmark. Dramatic in the por- 
traiture of .a mother's gambols with her child, and 
simple in the terrible apparition which opens the first 
scene of "Hamlet," the poet is never unequal to the 
realities which he has to delineate, or the man to the 
emotions with which he wishes to imbue our hearts. 

Why, then, are we sometimes painfully compelled to 
pause while following him ? Why does a sort of im- 
patience and fatigue frequently disturb the admiration 
which w.e feel for his works ? One misfortune happened 



114 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

to Shakspeare ; tliougli he was always lavish of his 
wealth, he was not always able to distribute it either 
opportunely or skilfully. This was frequently the 
misfortune of Corneille also. Ideas accumulated about 
Corneille, as about Shakspeare, confusedly and tumul- 
tuously, and neither of them had the courage to treat 
his own mind with prudent severity. They forgot the 
position of the character they were describing, in order to 
indulge in the thoughts which it awakened in the soul of 
the poet. In Shakspeare, especially, this excessive 
indulgence in his own ideas and feelings sometimes 
arrests and interrupts the emotions awakened in the 
breast of the spectator, in a manner which is fatal to the 
dramatic effect. It is not merely, as in Corneille, the 
ingenious loquacity of a rather talkative mind ; but it 
is the restless and fantastic reverie of a mind astonished 
at its own discoveries, not knowing how to reproduce 
the whole impression which it has received from them, 
and heaping ideas, images, and expressions one upon 
another, in order to awaken in us feelings similar to 
those by which it is itself oppressed. The feelings 
developed at such length are not always, however, those 
which should properly occupy the personage by whom 
they are expressed ; and not only is the harmony of the 
position injured by them, but we find ourselves com- 
pelled to undertake a certain labour which, in the end, 
diverts our attention from the subject on which it ought 
to be concentrated. Though always simple in their 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 115 

emotions, the heroes of Shakspeare are not always equally 
simple in their speeches ; though always true and 
natural in their ideas, they are not as constantly true and 
natural in the combinations which they form from them. 
The poet's gaze embraced an immense field, and his 
imagination, traversing it with marvellous rapidity, 
perceived a thousand distant or singular relations 
between the objects which met his view, and passed 
from one to another by a multitude of abrupt and 
curious transitions, which it afterwards imposed upon 
both the personages of the drama and the spectators. 
Hence arose the true and great fault of Shakspeare, the 
only one that originated in himself, and which is some- 
times perceptible even in his finest compositions ; and 
that is, a deceptive appearance of laborious research, 
which is occasioned, on the contrary, by the absence of 
labour. Accustomed, by the taste of his age, frequently 
to connect ideas and expressions by their most distant 
relations, he contracted the habit of that learned subtlety 
which perceives and assimilates everything, and leaves no 
point of resemblance unnoticed ; and this fault has more 
than once marred the gaiety of his comedies, as well as 
destroyed the pathos of his tragedies. If meditation 
had taught Shakspeare to fall back upon himself, to 
contemplate his own strength, and to concentrate it by 
skilful management, he would soon have rejected the 
abuse which he has made of it, and would have speedily 
become conscious that neither his heroes nor his spec- 

i 2 



116 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

tators could follow him in that prodigious movement of 
ideas, feelings, and intentions which, on every occasion, 
and under the slightest pretext, arose and obtruded 
themselves upon his own thought. 

But so far as we are able, at the present day, to form 
any idea of Shakspeare's character, from the scattered 
and uncertain details which have reached us regarding 
his life and person, we have every reason to believe that 
he never bestowed so much care, either on his labours 
or on his glory. More disposed to enjoy his own powers 
than to turn them to their best account, — docile to the 
inspiration, rather than guided by the consciousness, of 
his genius, — vexed but little by a craving after success, 
and more inclined to doubt its value than attentive to 
the means of obtaining it, — the poet advanced without 
measuring his progress, unveiling himself, as it were, at 
every step, and perhaps retaining, even at the end of 
his career, some remains of ingenuous ignorance of the 
marvellous riches which he scattered so lavishly in every 
direction. His sonnets alone, of all his works, contain a 
few allusions to his personal feelings, and to the condition 
of his soul and life ; but we rarely meet in them with 
the idea, so natural to a poet, of the immortality which 
his works are destined to achieve. He could not have 
been a man who reckoned much upon posterity, or who 
cared at all about it, who ever displayed so little anxiety 
to throw light upon the only monuments of his private 
existence which posterity possesses concerning him. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 117 

Printed for the first time in 1609, these sonnets were, 
doubtless, published with Shakspeare's consent, although 
nothing seems to indicate that he took the slightest part 
in their publication. Neither his publisher nor himself 
has endeavoured to impart to them an historical interest 
by naming the persons to whom they were addressed, 
or the occasions which inspired their composition. Thus 
the light which they throw upon some of the circum- 
stances of his life is often so doubtful that it tends 
rather to perplex than to guide the biographer. The 
passionate style which pervades them all — even those 
which are evidently addressed merely to a friend — has 
thrown the commentators upon Shakspeare into great 
embarrassment. Of all the conjectures which have been 
hazarded in explanation of this fact, one alone, in my 
opinion, seems to possess any likelihood. At a time when 
the mind, tormented, as it were, by its youth and inexpe- 
rience, tried all forms of expression, except simplicity, — 
and at a Court in which euphuism, the fashionable 
language, had introduced the most whimsical travesties, 
both of persons and ideas, into familiar conversation, — 
it is possible that, in order to express real feelings, the 
poet may sometimes have assumed, in these fugitive 
compositions, the tone and language of conventionality. 
It is known, from a pamphlet published in 1598, that 
Shakspeare's " sugar' d sonnets," which were already 
celebrated, although they had not yet been printed, 
were the delight of his private circle of friends ; and if 



118 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

it be remarked, that the idea which terminates them is 
almost always repeated, with variations, in several 
successive sonnets, we shall feel strongly tempted to 
regard them as the simple amusements of a mind which 
could never resist the opportunity of expressing an 
ingenious idea. Not only, therefore, are Shakspeare's 
sonnets insufficient to explain the facts to which they 
allude, but it is only by a more or less logical process of 
induction that they can be made to supply any details 
regarding the occupations of Shakspeare's life during 
his residence in London, and during those thirty years, 
now so glorious, regarding which he has been at such 
pains to supply us with no information. 

Perhaps his position, as well as his character, may 
have contributed to cause this silence. A feeling of 
pride, as much as a sentiment of modesty, may have 
induced Shakspeare to leave in oblivion an existence 
which gave him but little satisfaction. The condition 
of an actor then possessed, in England, neither con- 
sistency nor reputation. Whatever difference Hamlet 
may place between strolling players and those who 
belonged to an established theatre, the latter could not 
but bear the weight of the coarseness of the public upon 
whom they were dependent, as well as that of the 
colleagues with whom they shared the task of diverting 
the public. The general fondness for theatrical amuse- 
ments furnished employment to persons of every 
condition, from those who engaged in bear-baitings, to 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 119 

the choristers of St. Paul's and the players of Blackfriars. 
It was probably of some theatre holding a middle rank 
between these two extremes, that Shakspeare gives us 
so amusing a description in the " Midsummer Night's 
Dream." But the means of illusion to which the 
artisan performers of this drama have recourse, are in 
no respect inferior to those of which the most distin- 
guished theatres made use. The actor, covered " with 
lime and rough-cast," who represents the wall that 
separated Pyramus and Thisbe, and moves his fingers to 
provide "the chink through which the lovers whisper," 
and the man who, with his lantern, his dog, and his 
thornbush, " doth the horned moon present," did not 
require a much greater stretch of the imagination of the 
spectators than was necessary to regard the same scene 
as a garden full of flowers, then, without any changes, as 
a- rock upon which a vessel has just suffered shipwreck, 
and, finally, as a field of battle, upon which. " two armies 
fly in, represented with four swords and bucklers." 1 
There is reason to believe that all these performances 
collected together very nearly the same audience ; at 
least, it is certain that Shakspeare' s plays were per- 
formed both at Blackfriars and at the Globe, two different 
theatres, although both belonged to the same troop. 

Strolling players were accustomed to give their 
performances in the court-yards of urns. The stage was 

1 See the ironical description of the uncouth state of the stage, given by 
Sir Philip Sidney in his " Defence of Poesy/' 



120 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

erected in one corner, while the spectators occupied the 
remainder of the yard, standing, like the actors, in the 
open air ; the lower rooms and the gallery which ran 
round the court, were doubtless opened to the public at 
a higher rate of admission. The London theatres were 
constructed upon this plan ; and those which were 
called "public playhouses," in opposition to the "private 
theatres," kept up the custom of performing in the 
open air, without any other canopy than the sky. The 
Globe was a public theatre, and the Blackfriars a 
private one ; these last establishments doubtless occu- 
pied a superior rank ; and, at a later period, to frequent 
the Blackfriars theatre was regarded as a mark of 
elegant taste and superior discernment. But such 
distinctions are incapable of being clearly defined, and 
when Shakspeare appeared on the stage, these shades 
of difference were probably very confused. In 1609, 
Decker wrote a pamphlet entitled " The Gul's Horne- 
booke," which contains a chapter, " How a gallant 
should behave himself in a playhouse." We learn from 
this authority, that a gentleman, on entering a public 
or private theatre, should walk at once on the stage, 
and sit down either on the ground or on a stool, as he 
found it convenient to pay for a seat or not. He must 
valiantly keep his post in spite of the gibes and insults 
of the populace in the pit ; because it becomes a 
gentleman to laugh at "the mews and hisses of the 
opposed rascality. " However, if the multitude should 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 121 

begin to shout " Out with the fool 1 " the danger 
becomes sufficiently serious for good taste to permit the 
gentleman to withdraw. During the performance, the 
common people were supplied with beer and apples, of 
which the actors also frequently partook • while the 
gentlemen, on their side, smoked their pipes and played 
at cards ; indeed, it was not at all unusual for the elegant 
habitues of the theatre to begin a game at cards before 
the commencement of the play. " The Gul's Horne- 
booke" recommends them to play with an appearance 
of great eagerness, even if they return the money to 
each other at supper-time ; and nothing, says Decker, 
can give greater notoriety to a gentleman than to throw 
his cards on the stage, after having torn up three or 
four of them with every manifestation of rage. The 
duties of the spectators in possession of the honours of 
the stage were to speak, to laugh, and to turn their 
backs on the actors whenever they were displeased with 
either the author or the play. These pleasures of the 
gentlemen give a sufficient clue to those of the populace 
in the pit, whom contemporary writers usually designate 
by the name of " stinkards/' The condition of the 
actors compelled to minister to the amusement of such 
an audience could not but be attended by more than 
one unpleasantness, and we may attribute to Shakspeare's 
experience of an actor's life that aversion for popular 
assemblies which is frequently displayed with great 
energy in his works. 



122 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

Nor do the condition and habits of the poets who 
wrote for the stage give us a more honourable idea, in 
these two respects, of the actors with whom they asso- 
ciated ; and, in order to suppose that Shakspeare, 
young, gay, and easy-tempered, could have escaped from 
the influence of his twofold character of poet and actor, 
we need the assistance of that unshrinking faith which 
the commentators repose in their patron. Shakspeare 
himself leaves us little room to doubt that he fell into 
errors, which he at least has the merit of regretting, In 
one of his sonnets, he inquires why Fortune, whom he 
calls — 

" The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds," 

should alone bear the reproach of the "public means" 
to which he has been obliged to resort for his sub- 
sistence. And he acids : 

" Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ; 
And almost thence my nature is subdued 
To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 
Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed, 
Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink 
Potions of eysel * 'gainst my strong infection ; 
No bitterness that I will bitter think, 
Nor double penance to correct correction." 

In the next sonnet, addressing the same person, still 
in the same tone of confident yet respectful affection, 

he says : 

" Your love and pity doth th' impression fill 
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow ; 
For what care I who calls me well or ill, 
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow ? " 



Vinegar. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 123 

In another sonnet, he laments over the blot which had 
divided two lives united by affection, and says : 

" I may not evermore acknowledge thee, 
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame ; 
Nor thou with public kindness honour me, 
Unless thou take that honour from thy name." 

And in another bonnet, he complains that he is, if not 
calumniated, at least wrongly judged; and that the 
" frailties of his sportive blood " are spied out by 
censors, who are frailer than himself. It is easy to 
divine the nature of Shakspeare's frailties ; and several 
sonnets on the infidelities, and even on the vices, of 
the mistress whom he celebrates, give sufficient proof 
that his errors were not always caused by persons 
capable of excusing them. However, how can we 
suppose that, in the state of morals in the sixteenth 
century, public severity could have looked with great 
rigour on such disorders ? In order to explain the 
humiliation of the poet, we must suppose either that 
he had been guilty of some extraordinarily scandalous 
conduct, or that particular dishonour attached to the 
disorders and position of an actor. The latter hypo- 
thesis appears to me the most probable. No grave 
reproach can, at any time, have weighed upon a 
man whose contemporaries never speak of him without 
affection and esteem, and whom Ben Jonson declares 
to have been " truly honest," without deriving from 
this assertion either the opportunity or the right of 



124 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

relating some circumstance disgraceful to his memory, 
or some well-known error which the officious rival 
would not have failed to establish while excusing it. 

Perhaps, on being brought into contact with the 
higher classes of society, struck by the display of a 
relative elegance of sentiments and manners of which 
he had previously had no idea, and becoming suddenly 
aware that his nature gave him a right to participate 
in these delicacies which had hitherto been foreign to 
his habits, Shakspeare felt himself oppressed, by his 
position, with painful shackles ; perhaps even he was 
led to exaggerate his humiliation, by the natural dispo- 
sition of a haughty soul, which feels itself all the more 
abased by an unequal condition, because it is con- 
scious of its worthiness to enjoy equality. At all events, 
there can be no doubt that, with that measured circum- 
spection which is as frequently the accompaniment of 
pride as of modesty, Shakspeare laboured to overleap 
these humiliating differences of station, and succeeded in 
his attempt. His first dedication to Lord Southampton, 
that of " Venus and Adonis," is written with respectful 
timidity. That of the poem of " Lucrece," which was 
published in the following year, expresses grateful 
attachment, which feels sure of being well received ; and 
he vows to his protector " love without end." The 
resemblance of the tone of this preface to that of a great 
many of the sonnets, the repeated benefits in which the 
friendship of Lord Southampton enabled their recipient 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 125 

to glory, and the lively affection with which the sensitive 
and confident Shakspeare was naturally inspired by the 
amiable and generous protection of a young man of 
such brilliant rank and merit, — -all these circumstances 
have led some of the commentators to suppose that 
Lord Southampton may have been the object of the 
poet's inexplicable sonnets. Without inquiring to what 
extent the euphuism then prevalent, the exaggeration of 
poetic language, and the false taste of the age, may have 
imparted to Lord Southampton the features of an adored 
mistress, we cannot but admit that most of these sonnets 
are addressed to a person of superior rank, the devotion 
of the poet to whom bears the character of submissive 
but passionate respect. Several of them, also, seem to 
point to habitual and intimate literary connections. 
Sometimes Shakspeare congratulates himself on pos- 
sessing the guidance and inspiration of his friend ; and 
sometimes he complains that he has ceased to be the sole 
recipient of that inspiration, and says : 

" I grant thou wert not married to my Muse ; " 

but yet the grief occasioned by this divided favour is 
expressed under all the forms of jealousy, sometimes 
resigned to its fate, and sometimes stimulated, by the 
bitterness of its feelings, to give utterance to strong 
reproaches, which, however, never transgress the 
bounds of respect. Elsewhere he accuses himself, as it 
would appear, of infidelity to " an old friend; " he has 



126 SHAKSPEAKE AND HIS TIMES. 

too " frequent been with unknown minds/' and f given 
to time" the " dear-purchased rights" of an affection — 

" Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day ; " 

but he confesses his fault, and implores pardon in the 
name of the confidence with which he is always inspired 
by the affection he has neglected. Another sonnet 
speaks of mutual wrongs pardoned, but the sorrow of 
which is still present. If these are not mere forms of 
language, employed, perhaps, on occasions very different 
from those which they appear to indicate, the feeling 
which thus occupied the inner life of the poet must have 
been as tempestuous as it was passionate. 

Externally, however, his existence seems to have 
pursued a tranquil course. His name is mixed up in 
no literary quarrel ; and, but for the malicious allusions 
of the envious Ben Jonson, scarcely would a single 
criticism be associated with the panegyrics which bear 
witness to his superiority. All the documents which 
we possess exhibit Shakspeare to us placed at last in 
the position which he was rightfully entitled to occupy, 
and valued as much for the charm of his character as 
for the brilliancy of his talents, and the admiration 
due to his genius. A glance, too, at the affairs of 
the poet will prove that he was beginning to introduce 
into the details of his existence that order and regularity 
which are essential to respectability. We find him suc- 
cessively purchasing, in his native town, a house and 



SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 127 

various portions of land, which soon formed a sufficient 
estate to insure him a competent income. The profits 
which he derived from the theatre, in his double capacity 
of author and actor, have been estimated at two hundred 
pounds a-year, a very considerable sum at that time • 
and if the liberalities of Lord Southampton were added 
to the economy of the poet, we may conclude that, at least, 
they were not unwisely employed. Rowe, in his Life 
of Shakspeare, seems to think that the gifts of Queen 
Elizabeth also had some share in building up the fortune 
of her favourite poet. The grant of an escutcheon which 
was made, or rather confirmed to his father in 1599, 
proves a desire to bestow honour on his family. But 
there is nothing to indicate that Shakspeare obtained, 
from Elizabeth and her Court, any marks of distinction 
superior or even equal to those conferred by Louis XIV. 
upon Moliere, like himself an actor and a poet. If we 
except his intimacy with Lord Southampton, Shakspeare, 
like Moliere, chose his habitual acquaintance chiefly 
among men of letters, whose social condition he had 
probably contributed to elevate. The Mermaid Club, 
founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and of which Shakspeare, 
Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Eletcher, and many others were 
members, was long celebrated for the brilliant " wit- 
combats," Avhich took place there between Shakspeare 
and Ben Jonson, and in which the vivacity of the former 
gave him an immense advantage over the laborious 
slowness of his opponent. The anecdotes which are 



128 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

quoted on this point are not worthy of being collected 
at the present day. Few bons-mots are sufficiently good 
to survive for two centuries. 

Who would not suppose that a life which had become 
so honourable and pleasant would long have retained 
Shakspeare in the midst of society conformable to the 
necessities of his mind, and upon the theatre of his' 
glory? Nevertheless, in 1613, or 1614 at the latest, 
three or four years after having obtained from James I. 
the direction of the Blackfriars Theatre, without having 
apparently incurred the displeasure of the king to whom 
he was indebted for this new mark of favour, or of the 
public for whom he had just produced " Othello" and 
" The Tempest" — Shakspeare left London and the stage 
to take up his residence at Stratford, in his house at 
New Place, in the midst of his fields. Had he become 
anxious to taste the joys of family life ? He might have 
brought his wife and children to London. Nothing 
seems to indicate that he was greatly grieved at 
separation from them. During his residence in London, 
he used, it is said, to make frequent journeys to 
Stratford • but he has been accused of having found, on 
the road, pleasures of a kind which may have consoled 
him, at least, for the absence of his wife ; and Sir William 
Davenant used loudly to boast of the poet's intimacy 
with his mother, the pretty and witty hostess of the 
Crown, at Oxford, where Shakspeare always stopped on 
his way to Stratford. If Shakspeare's sonnets were to 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 129 

be regarded as the expression of his dearest and most 
habitual feelings, we might reasonably be astonished at 
not finding in them a single allusion to Iris native place, 
to his children, or even to the son whom he lost at 
twelve years of age. And yet Shakspeare could not 
have been ignorant of the power of paternal love. He 
who, in " Macbeth/' has described pity as " a naked, 
new-born babe ;" he who has put these words into the 
mouth of Coriolanus, — 

" Not of a woman's tenderness to be 
Requires nor child nor woman's face to see ; " 

he who has so well depicted the tender puerilities of 
maternal affection, — could not have looked upon his 
own children without experiencing the fond emotions of 
a father's heart. But Shakspeare, as his character pre- 
sents itself to our mind, had long been able to find, in 
the distractions of the world, enough to occupy the 
place, in his soul and life, which he was capable of 
giving up to family affections. However this may be, it is 
more difficult to discern the causes which led to his 
departure from London, than to perceive those which 
might have tended to prolong his residence in that city. 
Perhaps the arrival of infirmities may have warned him 
of the necessity of repose ; and perhaps, also, the very 
natural desire of showing himself in his native place, 
under circumstances so different from those hi which he 
had left it, made him hasten the moment of renouncing 



130 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

labours which no longer had the pleasures of youth for 
their compensation. 

New pleasures could not fail to spring up for 
Shakspeare in his retirement. A natural disposition to 
enjoy everything heartily rendered him equally adapted 
to delight in the calm happiness of a tranquil life, and 
to find enjoyment in the vicissitudes of an agitated 
existence. The first mulberry-tree introduced into the 
neighbourhood of Stratford was planted by Shakspeare's 
hands, in a corner of his garden at New Place, and 
attested for more than a century the gentle simplicity of 
the occupations in which his days were spent. A com- 
petent fortune seemed to unite with the esteem and 
friendship of his neighbours to promise him that best 
crown of a brilliant life — a tranquil and honoured old 
age, when, on the 23rd of April, 1616, the very day 
on which he attained his fifty-second year, death carried 
him off from that calm and pleasant position, the happy 
leisure of which he would doubtless not have consecrated 
to repose alone. 

We have no information regarding the nature of the 
disease to which he fell a victim. His will is dated on 
the 25th of March, 1616; but the date of February, 
effaced to make way for that of March, gives us reason 
to believe that he had commenced it a month previously. 
He declares that he had written it in perfect health ; 
but the precaution taken thus opportunely, at an age 
still so distant from senility, leads to the presumption 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 131 

that some unpleasant symptom had awakened within 
him the idea of danger. There is no evidence either to 
confirm or to set aside this supposition ; and Shakspeare's 
last days are surrounded by an obscurity even deeper, 
if possible, than that which enshrouds his life. 

His will contains nothing very remarkable, with the 
exception of a new proof of the little estimation in which 
he held the wife whom he had so hastily married. 
After having appointed his daughter Susanna, who had 
married Mr. Hall, a physician at Stratford, his chief 
legatee, he bequeaths tokens of friendship to various 
persons, among whom he does not include his wife, but 
mentions her afterwards, in an interlineation, merely to 
leave to her his "second best bed." A similar piece of 
forgetfulness, repaired in the same manner, is remark- 
able in reference to Burbage, Heminge, and Condell, the 
only ones of his theatrical friends of whom he makes 
mention ; to each of these he bequeaths, also in an 
interlineation, thirty-six shillings, " to buy them rings." 
Burbage, the best actor of his time, had contributed 
greatly to the success of Shakspeare's plays ■ Heminge 
and Condell, seven years after his death, published the 
first complete edition of his dramatic works. 

This singular omission of the name of Shakspeare's 
wife, repaired in so slight a manner, probably indicates 
something more than forgetfulness ; and we are tempted 
to regard it as the sign of an aversion or dislike, 
the manifestation of which the poet was induced to 

K 2 



132 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

modify in a slight degree by the approach of death 
alone. 

Shakspeare's second daughter, Judith, had married 
a vintner, and received a much smaller share of her 
father's inheritance than her sister, Mrs. Hall. Was it 
in her quality of eldest daughter, or in consequence of 
some special predilection, that Shakspeare thus distin- 
guished Susanna? An epitaph engraved upon her 
tomb, at her death in 1649, represents her as "witty 
above her sex," in which she had " something of 
Shakspeare," but more because she was "wise to salva- 
tion," and " wept for all." About Judith we know 
nothing, except that she could not write ; which fact is 
established by a deed still existing, to which she has 
affixed a cross, or some analogous sign, indicated by a 
marginal note as " Judith Shakspeare, her mark." 
Judith left three sons, who died childless. Susanna 
had one daughter, who married, first, Thomas Nash, 
and afterwards Sir John Barnard, of Abington. No 
child was born of either of these marriages, and thus 
Shakspeare's posterity became extinct in the second 
generation. 

It is somewhat remarkable that Shakspeare died on 
the same day as his great contemporary, Cervantes. 

Shakspeare was buried in Stratford Church, in which 
his tomb still exists. It represents the poet, of the size 
of life, sitting under an arch, with a cushion before 
him, and a pen in his right hand. Like many other 



"SHAXSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 133 

monuments of the time, the figure was originally 
coloured after the life ; the eyes being painted light 
brown, with hair and beard of a deeper tinge. The 
doublet was scarlet, and the gown black. The colours 
having become faded by time, were restored in 1748 by 
Mr. John War 4, the grandfather of Mrs. Siddons and 
of Kemble, out of the profits of a performance of 
"Othello." But, in 1793, Mr. Malone, one of the 
principal commentators upon Shakspeare, covered the 
statue with a thick coat of white paint ; being doubtless 
led to do this by that exclusive prejudice in favour of 
modern customs which has so frequently led him into 
error in his commentaries. An indignant traveller, in 
some lines written in the Album of Stratford Church, 
has called down the malediction of the poet upon 
Malone, — 

" Whose meddling zeal his barb'rous taste displays, 
And smears his tombstone, as he marred his plays." 

Without giving an absolute assent to these harsh 
expressions of legitimate anger, we cannot refrain from 
a smile at observing, in Mr. Malone's coat of white 
paint, a symbol of the spirit which dictated his commen- 
taries, as well as a type of the general character of 
the eighteenth century, held in servitude by its own 
tastes, and incapable of comprehending anything that 
did not enter into the sphere of its ordinary habits 
and ideas. 

Although this injudicious reparation effected a great 



134 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

change in the physiognomy of the portrait of Shakspeare, 
it was not able altogether to efface that expression of 
gentle serenity which appears to have characterised the 
countenance as well as the soul of the poet. On the 
sepulchral stone below the monument, the following 
inscription is engraved : — 

" Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear 
To dig the dust enclosed here. 
Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
And cursed be he that moves my bones." 

These lines are said to have been composed by 
Shakspeare himself, and were the cause which prevented 
the transference of his tomb to Westminster, as had 
once been intended. Some years ago, an excavation by 
the wall of Stratford Church exposed to view the grave 
in which his body had been laid ; and the sexton, who, in 
order to prevent the sacrilegious depredations of curiosity 
or admiration, kept guard by the opening until the vault 
had been repaired, having attempted to look inside the 
tomb, saw neither bones nor coffin, but only dust. " It 
seems to me," says the traveller who relates this circum- 
stance, " that it was something to have seen the dust of 
Shakspeare." 

This tomb now remains in sole possession of the 
honours which it once shared with Shakspeare's mulberry- 
tree. About the middle of last century, the Rev. Mr. 
Gastrell, a man of large fortune, became the proprietor 
of New Place. This house, which had remained for 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 135 

some time in the possession of the Nash family, had 
afterwards passed through several hands, and undergone 
many alterations ; but the mulberry -tree remained 
standing, the object of the veneration of the curious. 
Mr. Gastrell, annoyed at the number of visitors which it 
attracted, had ^it cut down, with a savage brutality in 
which indifference would probably not have indulged, 
but which frequently characterises that furious pride of 
liberty and property, which would deem itself compro- 
mised if it yielded in the slightest degree to public 
opinion. A few years afterwards, this same Mr. Gastrell, 
in consequence of a dispute which he had had with the 
town of Stratford regarding a slight tax which he was 
required to pay on his house, swore that that house 
should never be taxed again, and he therefore had it 
pulled down, and sold the materials. As for the 
mulberry-tree, part of it ivas saved from the fire to 
which it had been consigned by Mr. Gastrell, by a clock- 
maker of Stratford, a man of sense, who gained a great 
deal of money by making it into snuff-boxes, toys, and 
other articles. The house in which Shakspeare was born 
still exists at Stratford, and is still shown as an object of 
interest to travellers, who may always see, and, it is said, 
are constantly able to purchase, either the chair or the 
sword of the poet, the lantern which he used in performing 
the part of Friar Lawrence in " Romeo and Juliet," or 
pieces of the arquebuss with which he killed the deer 
in Sir Thomas Lucy's park. 



136 SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 

It is not from the death of Shakspeare that we must 
date, in England, that worship, the devotedness of which, 
after having been maintained with such fervour for 
sixty years, seems now to have diffused a reflection of 
its heat over several countries of Europe. Though 
Shakspeare was dead, Ben Jonson still lived; and 
though Beaumont had lost his friend Fletcher, he still 
possessed his talent, the effects of which had been 
weakened, rather than fortified, by Eletcher. The 
necessities of curiosity too often overcome those of 
taste ; and the pleasure of going again to admire 
Shakspeare, could not fail to yield to the keener interest 
of going to judge the newest productions of his 
competitors. It was not to his dramatic pedantry 
that Ben Jonson was then indebted for the empire 
which, in Shakspeare's life-time, he did not venture to 
aspire to share. The triumphs of classical taste were 
confined, in his case, to the unanimous eulogies of the 
literary men of his time, who were easily satisfied on 
the score of regularity, and were always glad of an 
opportunity to avenge science upon the disdain of the 
vulgar ; but the tragedies and comedies of Ben Jonson 
were not the less coolly received by the public, and 
were sometimes even rejected with an irreverence for 
which he afterwards took his revenge in his prefaces. 
But his masques, a kind of opera, obtained general 
success ; and the more Ben Jonson and the erudite 
strove to render tragedy and comedy tiresome, the more 



SHAKSPEARE AXD HIS TIMES. 137 

strongly did the public fall back upon masques for their 
amusement. Several poets of Shakspeare's school also 
endeavoured to satisfy the taste of the public for the kind 
of pleasure to which he had accustomed them. Their 
efforts, attended with varying success, but maintained 
with untiring activity, kept up that taste for the dratna 
which survives the epoch of its masterpieces. About 
five hundred and fifty dramas, without reckoning those 
of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
were printed before the Restoration of Charles II. Of 
these, only thirty-eight can date from times anterior to 
Shakspeare ; and it has been seen that, during his life, 
the custom was not to print those plays which were 
intended for representation on the stage. Froni 1640 
to 1660, the Puritans closed nearly all the theatres ; and 
most of these productions, therefore, belong to the 
"twenty-five years which elapsed between the death of 
Shakspeare and the commencement of the civil wars. 
This was the weight beneath which the popularity of 
England's first dramatic poet succumbed for a time. 

His memory, however, did not perish. In 1623, 
Heminge and Condell published the first complete 
edition of his dramas, thirteen of which only had been 
printed during his lifetime. His name was still held in 
respect ; but for a finished reputation to inspire some- 
thing beside respect, time must come to its aid, and 
must at first efface and suppress it, to give it at some 
future time the attraction of a neglected glory, and to 



138 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 



stimulate the self-love and curiosity of inquiring minds to 
give it new life by a new examination, and to find in it 
the charm of a new discovery. A great writer rarely 
obtains, in the generation succeeding his own, the 
homage which posterity will lavish upon him. Some- 
times even, long spaces of time are necessary for the 
revolution commenced by a superior man to accomplish 
its course, and to bring the world to perceive its merits. 
Several causes combined to prolong the interval during 
which Shakspeare's works were regarded with coldness, 
and almost utterly forgotten. 

The civil wars and the triumph of Puritanism occurred 
first, not only to interrupt all dramatic performances, 
but to destroy, as far as possible, every trace of amuse- 
ment of this kind. The Restoration afterwards intro- 
duced into England a foreign taste, which did not 
perhaps pervade the nation, but which held sway over 
the Court. English literature then assumed a character 
which was not effaced by the new revolution of 1688 ; 
and French ideas, made honourable by the literary glory 
of the seventeenth century, and sustained by that of the 
eighteenth, retained in England a youthful and vigorous 
influence which had been lost by the old glories of 
Shakspeare. Eifty years after his death, Dryden 
declared that his idiom was a little "out of use." 
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Lord 
Shaftesbury complained of his "natural rudeness, his 
unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and wit ; " 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 139 

and Shakspeare was then, for these reasons, excluded 
from several collections of the modern poets. In fact, 
Dryden did not understand Shakspeare, grammatically 
speaking ; of this fact we have several proofs, and 
Dryden himself has proved, by re-casting his pieces, that 
poetically he comprehended him as little. But not only 
was Shakspeare not understood, he soon became no 
longer known. In 1707, a poet named Tate produced 
a work entitled " King Lear," the subject of which, he 
said, he had borrowed from an obscure piece of the same 
name, recommended to his notice by a friend. This 
obscure piece was Shakspeare's " King Lear." 

Distinguished writers, however, had not altogether 
ceased to allow Shakspeare a share in the literary glory 
of their country ; but it was timidly and by degrees that 
they shook off the yoke of the prejudices of their time. 
If, in concert with Davenant, Dryden had recast the 
works of Shakspeare, Pope, in the edition which he 
published in 1725, contented himself with omitting all 
that he could not bring himself to regard as the work of 
the genius to whom he paid at least this homage. With 
regard to that which he was obliged to leave, Shakspeare, 
says Pope, " having at his first appearance no other 
aim in his writings than to procure a subsistence," 
wrote " for the people," without seeking to obtain 
"patronage from the better sort." In 1765, Johnson, 
waxing bolder, and gaining encouragement from the 
dawn of a return to the national taste, vigorously 



140 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

defended the romantic liberties of Shakspeare against the 
pretensions of classical authority ; and though he made 
some concessions to the contempt of a more polished 
age for the vulgarity and ignorance of the old poet, he 
at least had the courage to remark, that when a country 
is iC unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the 
vulgar.' 5 

Shakspeare' s works, then, were reprinted and com- 
mentated ; but the mutilations alone obtained the 
honours of the stage. The Shakspeare amended by 
Dryden, Davenant, and others, was the only one which 
actors ventured to perform ; and the " Tatler," having 
to quote some lines from " Macbeth," copied them 
from Davenant's amended edition. It was Garrick, 
who, finding nowhere so fully as in Shakspeare, means 
to supply the requirements of his own talent, delivered 
him from this disgraceful protection, lent to his ancient 
glory the freshness of his own young renown, and restored 
the poet to possession of the stage as well as of the 
patriotic admiration of the English. 

Since that period, national pride has daily extended 
and redoubled this admiration. It nevertheless remained 
barren of results, and Shakspeare, to use the language 
of Sir Walter Scott, cc reigned a Grecian prince over 
Persian slaves, and they who adored him did not dare 
attempt to use his language." A new impulse cannot 
be entirely due to old recollections ; and an old epoch, 
that it may bear new fruit, needs to be again fertilised 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 141 

by a movement analogous to that which gave it its first 
fertility. 

This movement has made itself felt in Europe, and 
England also is beginning to feel its impulse, as Sir 
Walter Scott's novels sufficiently demonstrate. But 
England will sot be the only country indebted to 
Shakspeare for the new direction which is manifesting 
itself in her drama, as well as in other branches of her 
literature. In the literary movement by which it is 
now agitated, Continental Europe turns its eyes towards 
Shakspeare. Germany has long adopted him as a 
model rather than as a guide ; and thereby it has, 
perhaps, suspended in their course those vivifying juices 
which impart then vigour and freshness only to fruits of 
native growth. Nevertheless, the path on which 
Germany has entered is leading to the discovery of true 
"wealth ; and if she will but work her own mines, a rich 
and fertile vein will not be wanting. The literature of 
Spain, a natural fruit of her civilisation, already possesses 
its own original and distinct character. Italy alone and 
Erance, the fatherlands of modern classicism, are not yet 
recovered from their astonishment at the first shock 
given to those opinions which they have established 
with the rigour of necessity, and maintained with the 
pride of faith. Doubt presents itself to us as yet only 
as an enemy whose attacks we are beginning to fear ; it 
seems as though discussion bears a threatening aspect, 
and that examination cannot probe without undermining 



142 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

and overturning. In this position, we hesitate, as if 
about to destroy that which will never be replaced ; we 
are afraid of finding ourselves without law, and of dis- 
covering nothing but the insufficiency or illegitimacy 
of those principles upon which we were formerly wont 
to rely without disquietude. 

This disturbance of mind cannot cease so long as the 
question remains undecided between science and 
barbarism, the beauties of order and the effects of 
disorder; so long as men persist in seeing, in that 
system of which the first outlines were traced by 
Shakspeare, nothing but an allowance of unrestrained 
liberty and undefined latitude to the nights of the 
imagination, as well as to the course of genius. If the 
romantic system has beauties, it necessarily has its art 
and rules. Nothing is beautiful, in the eyes of man, 
which does not derive its effects from certain combina- 
tions, the secret of which can always be supplied by our 
judgment when our emotions have attested its power. 
The knowledge or employment of these combinations 
constitutes art. Shakspeare had his own art. We 
must seek it out in his works, examine into the means 
which he employs, and the results to which he aspires. 
Then only shall we possess a true knowledge of his 
system ; then -we shall know how far it is capable of 
increased development, according to the nature of 
dramatic art, considered in its application to modern 
society. 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 143 

It is, in fact, nowhere else — neither in past times, nor 
among peoples unacquainted with our habits — but 
among ourselves, and in ourselves, that we must seek 
the conditions and necessities of dramatic poetry. 
Differing in this respect from other arts, in addition to 
the absolute rule^ imposed upon it, as on all others, by 
the unchangeable nature of man, dramatic art has rela- 
tive rules which flow from the changeful state of society. 
In imitating the antique style, modern statuaries labour 
under no other constraint but the difficulty of equalling 
its perfection ; and the most fervent and powerful 
adorer of antiquity would not venture to reproduce, 
even upon the most submissive stage, all that he 
admires in a tragedy of Sophocles. It is easy to discern 
the cause of this. When contemplating a statue or a 
picture, the spectator receives at first, from the sculptor 
or the painter, the first impression which occurs to him ; 
but it rests with himself to continue the work. He 
stops and looks ; his natural disposition, his recollec- 
tions and thoughts, group themselves around the leading 
idea which is presented to his view, and gradually 
develop within him the ever-increasing emotion which 
will soon hold entire dominion over him. The artist 
has done nothing but awaken in the spectator the 
faculty of conceiving and feeling ; it takes hold of the 
movement which has been communicated to it, follows 
it up in its own direction, accelerates it by its own 
strength, and thus creates for itself the pleasure which 



144 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

it enjoys. Before a picture of a martyrdom, one person 
is moved by the expression of fervent piety, another by 
the manifestation of resigned grief ; some are filled with 
indignation at the cruelty of the executioners. A tinge 
of courageous satisfaction which is evident in the look of 
the victim, reminds the patriot of the joys of devotion 
to a sacred cause ; and the soul of the philosopher is 
elevated by the contemplation of man sacrificing himself 
for truth. The diversity of these impressions is of little 
consequence ; they are all equally natural and equally 
free ; each spectator chooses, as it were, the feeling 
which suits him best, and when it has once entered into 
his soul, no external fact can disturb its supremacy, 
no movement can interrupt the course of that to which 
every man yields himself according to his inclination. 

In the prolonged course of dramatic action, on the 
contrary, all becomes changed at every step, and each 
moment produces a new impression. The painter is 
satisfied with establishing one first and unvarying con- 
nexion between his picture and the spectator. The 
dramatic poet must incessantly renew this relation, and 
maintain it through all the vicissitudes of the most various 
positions. All the acts in which human existence is 
manifested, all the forms which it assumes, and all the 
feelings which may modify it during the continuance of an 
always complicated event, — these are the numerous and 
changeful objects which he presents to the public view ; 
and he is never allowed to separate himself from his 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 145 

spectators, or to leave them for an instant alone and at 
liberty ; lie must be incessantly acting upon them, and 
must at every step excite in their souls emotions analo- 
gous to the ever-changing position in which he has 
placed them. How can he succeed in this, unless he 
carefully adapts feimself to then dispositions and inclina- 
tions ; unless he supplies the actual requirements of their 
mind; unless he addresses himself constantly to ideas 
which are familiar to them, and speaks to them in the 
language which they are accustomed to hear ? Passion 
will not appear to us so touching if it be displayed in a 
manner contrary to our habits ; and sympathy will not 
be awakened with the same vivacity in regard to 
interests of which we have ceased to be personally 
conscious. The necessity for appeasing the gods by a 
human sacrifice does not, in our mind, give that force to 
the speeches of Menelaus which it would have imparted 
to them among the Greeks, who were attached to their 
faith -. the stern chastity of Hippolytus does not interest 
us in his fate : and virtue itself, in order to obtain from 
us that affectionate reverence which it has a right to 
expect, needs to connect itself with duties which our 
habits have taught us to respect and cherish. 

Subject, therefore, at once to the conditions of the 
arts of imitation and to those of the purely poetical 
arts; bound, like epic poetry in its narratives, to set 
human life in motion ; and called upon, like painting 
and sculpture, to present it in person and under its 



146 SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 

individual features — the dramatic poet is obliged to 
include, within the probabilities of one action, all the 
means which he requires to make it understood. His 
characters can only tell us what they would say if they 
were actually there, really occupied with the fact which 
they represent. The epic poet, as it were, does the 
honours, to his readers, of the edifice into which he 
introduces them • he accompanies them with his own 
speeches, assists them by his explanations, and, by the 
description of manners, times, and places, prepares 
them for the scene which he is about to disclose to their 
view, and opens to them in every sense the world into 
which he is desirous to transport them, and himself also. 
The dramatic personage comes forward alone, concerned 
with himself only ; he places himself, without preliminary 
explanation, in communication with the spectator ; and 
without calling or guiding them, he must make his 
audience follow him. Thus separated from one another, 
how can they succeed in coming into connection, unless 
a profound and general analogy already exists between 
them ? Evidently those heroes, who do nothing for the 
public but speak and feel in their presence, will be 
understood and received by them only so far as they 
coincide with them in their mode of conceiving, feeling, 
and speaking ; and dramatic effect can result only from 
their aptitude to unite in the same impressions. 

The impressions of man communicated to man — this 
is, in fact, the sole source of dramatic effects. Man 



SHAKSPEARE A^D HIS TIMES. 147 

alone is the subject of the drama; man alone is its 
theatre. His soul is the stage upon which the events 
of this world come to play their part • it is not by their 
own virtue, but merely by their relations to the moral 
being whose destiny occupies our attention, that events 
take part in ike action; every dramatic character 
abandons them as soon as they aspire to exercise a 
direct influence over us, instead of acting by the inter- 
mediary of a visible person, and by means of the 
emotion which we receive, in our turn, from the emotion 
which they have excited in him. Why is the narrative 
of Theramenes epic and not dramatic? Because he 
addresses himself to the spectator, and not to Theseus. 
Theseus, being already aware of his son's death, is no 
longer capable of experiencing the impressions occasioned 
by the narrative ; and if, while still in uncertainty, he were 
only to arrive at a knowledge of his misfortune through 
the anguish of such a recital, the poetical ornaments 
with which it is perhaps overloaded would not prevent 
it from being dramatic, for the impressions which it 
produces would be to us those of a person interested in 
the result : we should be conscious of them in the heart 
of Theseus. 

In the heart of man alone can the dramatic fact take 
place ; the event which is its occasion does not constitute 
it. The death of the lover is rendered dramatic by the 
grief of his mistress — the danger of the son by the terror 
of his mother ; and however horrible may be the idea 



148 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

of the murder of a child, Andromache inspires us with 
greater solicitude than Astyanax. An earthquake and 
the physical convulsions which accompany it will furnish 
only a spectacle for contemplation, or the* subject of an 
epic narrative ; but the rain is dramatic upon the bald 
head of old Lear, and especially in the heart of his 
companions, racked by the pity which they feel for him. 
The apparition of a spectre would have no effect upon 
the audience unless some one on the stage were 
alarmed by it; and to produce the dramatic effect of 
Lady Macbeth' s somnambulism, Shakspeare has taken 
care that it should be witnessed by a physician and 
a waiting-woman, whom he has employed to transmit 
to us the terrible impressions which it produces upon 
themselves. 

Thus man alone occupies the stage \ his existence is 
displayed upon it, animated and aggrandised by the 
events which are connected with it, and which owe 
their theatrical character to this connection alone. In 
comedy, events, being of less magnitude than the 
passion which they excite in man, derive a laughable 
importance from this passion; in tragedy, being more 
powerful than the means which man has at his disposal, 
they move us by the exhibition of his grandeur and his 
weakness. The comic poet invents them freely, for his 
art consists in originating, in man himself and his 
absurdities, those events by which man is agitated. 
This invention is rarely a merit in the tragic poet, for 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 149 

his work is to discern and exhibit man and his sonl in 
the midst of the events to which he is subjected. If it 
be generally requisite that the subject of tragedy should 
be taken from the history of the great and powerful, it 
is because the strong impressions which it aims at 
producing upon* us can only be communicated to us 
by strong characters, incapable of succumbing beneath 
the blows of an ordinary destiny. It is in the develop- 
ment of high fortune and its terrible vicissitudes that 
the whole man appears, with all the wealth and energy 
of his nature. Thus the spectacle of the world, con- 
centrated in an individual, is revealed to us upon the 
stage ; thus, by the medium of the soul which receives 
their impress, events reach us through sympathy, the 
source of dramatic illusion. 

If material illusion were the aim of the arts, the wax 
figures of Curtius would surpass all the statues of 
antiquity, and a panorama would be the ultimate effort 
of painting. If their object were to impose upon the 
reason, and to impart to the imagination a shock 
sufficiently powerful to pervert the judgment to such a 
degree that a theatrical representation could be taken for 
the accomplishment of a real and actual fact, a very few 
scenes would suffice to work up the spectators to such a 
pitch of excitement that its effect would soon be to 
interrupt the performance by the violence of their 
emotions. If even it were desired that, in presence of 
objects imitated by art of any kind, the soul, affected at 



150 SHAKSPEAKE AND HIS TIMES. 

least by the reality of the impressions which it receives 
from them, should really experience those feelings of which 
the image is produced in it by a fictitious representation, 
the labour of genius would have succeeded only in 
multiplying, in this world, the pains of life and the 
exhibition of human miseries. These feelings, however, 
occupy and pervade us, and on their existence depends 
the effect which the poet aims to produce upon us. We 
must believe in them in order to yield to them ; and we 
could not believe in them unless we assigned to them a 
cause worthy to awaken them. When our tears flow 
before Raphael's picture of Christ bearing his cross, 
before we can allow them to flow, we must believe that 
we bestow them upon that sorrowful compassion which 
we should feel at really beholding such dreadful sufferings. 
If, in the emotions with which we are inspired by the 
sight of Tancred dying on the stage, we did not think 
we could recognise the emotions which we should feel for 
Tancred dying in reality, we should be disj)leased with 
ourselves for indulging in a pity which was not rendered 
legitimate by its application to sorrows that at least were 
possible. And yet we deceive ourselves ; that which we 
then discern in our breasts is not that power which is 
awakened at the aspect of the suffering of our fellows, — 
a power full of bitterness if reduced to inactivity, but 
full of activity if it be allowed liberty and hope to render 
assistance. It is not this power, but its shadow, — the 
image of our features repeated with striking accuracy, 



SHAKSPEAKE AND HIS TIMES. 151 

but without life, in a mirror. Moved at the aspect of 
what we should be capable of experiencing, we give up 
our imagination to it without having any demands to 
make upon our will. No one is tormented with an 
irrepressible desire to shout out to Tancred, Orosmane, 
or Othello, that* they are labouring under a mistake ; 
no one suffers through not being able to rush to the 
assistance of Gloster against the execrable Duke of 
Cornwall. The unendurable painfulness of the position 
of the spectators of such a scene is removed by the idea 
that it is utterly unreal ; an idea which is presented to 
our minds, and which we retain without clearly perceiving 
its presence, because we are absorbed by the contempla- 
tion of the more vivid impressions which crowd upon 
our brain. If this idea were clearly present to our 
thoughts, it would dissipate the whole cortege of illusions 
which surround us, and we should summon it to our 
assistance to deaden then effect, if they should change 
into a subject for real grief. But so long as the spectator 
takes delight in forgetting it, art should studiously 
avoid everything that might remind him that the spectacle 
which he contemplates is not real. Hence arises the 
necessity of bringing all the parts of the performance 
into harmonious unison, and of not diffusing unequally 
the force of the illusion, which loses strength as soon as it 
allows itself to be perceived. This is what would happen, 
if, at the moment when he is indulging in feelings 
which are familiar to him, the spectator were disconcerted 



152 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

by the presentation of forms of manners entirely foreign 
to his experience. Hence also arises the necessity of 
giving a certain amonnt of attention to the accessories, 
not in order to increase the illusion, but in order not to 
interfere with it. The actor alone is expected to produce 
that moral illusion which is aimed at by the drama. 
Where could we find means equal to those which he pos- 
sesses for so doing ? What imitation could stand beside 
his ? What object in nature could be so well represented 
as man, when it is man himself who represents it ? Let 
not dramatic art, therefore, seek assistance from other 
imitations which are far inferior to that which man can 
oifer it ; all that the machinist and the decorator have to 
do with the moral illusion is to remove everything that 
might injure its effect. Perhaps even art would have 
reason to dread too great efforts on their part to do it 
service 5 who can tell whether a too brilhant magic of 
painting, employed to enhance the effect of the decora- 
tions, would not weaken the dramatic effect by diverting 
the attention to the enchantments of another art ? 

These accessory imitations are dangerous auxiliaries, 
whether by their perfection they usurp the effect to which 
they ought merely to contribute, or whether they destroy 
it by their inefficiency. In England, as we have seen, 
the early stage was entirely unacquainted with the art of 
decoration, a recent homage paid to probability, which 
becomes really useful to the dramatic illusion when, 
without pretending to increase it, it simply prevents it from 



SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TDIES. 153 

having to surmount obstacles of too uncouth a nature, and 
enables the mind of the spectator to picture to itself with 
greater distinctness the position into which it is required 
to transport itself. Imaginations more susceptible than 
they were delicate, and more easily affected than unde- 
ceived, had no Heed of that management which is now 
demanded by a restless reason, incessantly occupied in 
exercising surveillance over even our pleasures. Those 
spectators who exacted so little with regard to the 
decoration of the theatre, exacted a great deal in reference 
to the material movement of the scene ; though indulgent 
to the insufficiency and rudeness of theatrical imitations, 
they were fond of variety, and scarcely perceived the 
improprieties which resulted therefrom. Just as a man 
might, without diminishing their emotion, represent to 
them the sensitive Ophelia or the delicate Desdemona, 
they could see stationed at one end of the stage the 
cannon which was to kill the Duke of Bedford at the 
opposite end, and this great event did not strike them less 
forcibly on account of the poverty of the arrangement ; 
indeed, they could receive with all the force of dramatic 
illusion the touching impression of the death of the two 
Talbots on a field of battle, which was animated by 
the movements of four soldiers I 

When the illusion becomes at once more difficult and 
more necessary to imaginations less quickly seduced, 
and to minds less easily amused, it is the study of art 
to remove every object that might prove injurious to it • 



154 SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 

and, as the representation of material objects becomes 
more perfect, it interferes less in the action of the drama, 
which is almost exclusively reserved for man, who alone 
can impart to it the appearance of reality. It was to 
man that, notwithstanding the habits of his time, 
Shakspeare felt that he must look for the production of 
this great effect. The movement of the stage, which, 
before his time, had constituted the chief interest of 
dramatic works, became in his plays a simple accessory 
which the taste of his age did not allow him to omit, and 
which perhaps his own taste did not require him to 
sacrifice, but which he reduced to its true value. It 
matters little, therefore, that, in his dramas, the moral 
illusion may still be sometimes disturbed by the imperfect 
representation of objects which theatrical imitation could 
not compass ■ Shakspeare did not the less discern the 
true source of this illusion, and did not seek the means 
of producing it elsewhere. 

He was equally well acquainted with its nature also ; 
he felt that an illusion of this kind, akin to no error of 
the senses or the reason, but the simple result of a 
disposition of the soul, which forgets all extraneous 
things in order to contemplate itself, could only be 
sustained by the perpetual consent of the spectator to 
the seduction which the poet is desirous to exercise over 
him, and that this seductive influence must therefore be 
maintained unintermittingly. Whatever might be the 
power of a dramatic representation, it could not, from 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 155 

the outset, obtain a sufficient hold upon us, to deliver us 
over in a defenceless state to all the feelings which will 
take possession of us in proportion as we advance in the 
position in which it has placed us. The imagination 
must lend itself gradually to this new position, and the 
soul must accustom itself to it, and accept the sway of 
the impressions which must arise from it, just as, when 
we experience an unexpected piece of good or bad 
fortune, we require some time to bring our feelings to a 
level with our fate. But if, after having obtained our 
consent to this position, and after having moved us by 
the impressions which accompany it, the poet impru- 
dently attempts to make us pass into a new position, 
attended by new impressions, the work must be begun 
over again, and will require all the more effort, because 
it will be necessary to efface the traces of a work already 
accomplished. Then the imagination becomes chilled 
and disturbed ; the spectator refuses to lend himself to 
a movement from which he is diverted after having been 
desired to yield himself unresistingly to its influence. 
The illusion vanishes, and with it the interest also ; for 
dramatic interest, in common with dramatic illusion, can 
only be attached to impressions which are continued and 
renewed in one and the same direction. 

Unity of impression, that prime secret of dramatic art, 
was the soul of Shakspeare's great conceptions, and the 
instinctive object of his assiduous labour, just as it is 
the end of all the rules invented by all systems. The 



156 SHAKSPEAEE AND HIS TIMES. 

exclusive partisans of the classic system believed that it 
was impossible to attain unity of impression, except by 
means of what are called the three unities. Shakspeare 
attained it by other means. If the legitimacy of these 
means were recognised, it would greatly diminish the 
importance hitherto attributed to certain forms and rules, 
which are evidently invested with an abusive authority 
if art, in order to accomplish its designs, does not need 
the restrictions which they impose upon it, and which 
often deprive it of a portion of its wealth. 

The mobility of our imagination, the variety of our 
interests, and the inconstancy of our inclinations, have 
given to times, and even to places, a power which should 
not be lost sight of by the poet who is desirous to make 
use of the affections of man in order to excite the 
sympathy of his fellows. If he presents his hero to them 
at intervals too widely distant in the duration of his 
existence, they will inquire : " What has become of the 
man whom we knew six months ago ? " just as naturally 
as, when meeting a friend six months after the occur- 
rence of an event which has plunged him into grief, we 
begin by inquiring discreetly into the state of that grief 
which we once saw so painfully manifested, for fear lest 
we should enter into communication with his soul before 
we know what feeling we shall have to participate. If 
compelled to give an account of the changes which have 
occurred, during the course of six months or a year, to 
spectators who, only a short time previously, saw him 






SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 157 

disappear from the stage, would not the tragic hero 
present a strange incongruity with himself? would not 
the thread of his identity be broken? and, far from 
feeling the same interest in him, should we not have 
some difficulty in avowing him to be the same person ? 

From this condition of human nature has been derived 
the true motive of the unities of time and place, which 
have often been most preposterously founded upon a 
pretended necessity of satisfying the reason by accom- 
modating the duration of the real action to that of the 
theatrical representation ; as if the reason could consent 
to believe that, during the interval of a few minutes 
between the acts, the persons of the drama had passed 
from evening to morning without having slept, or from 
morning to evening without having eaten 5 and as if it 
were more easy to take three hours for a day than for a 
week, or even for a month ! 

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the mind feels 
a certain repugnance to behold intervals of time and 
place disappear before it, without its being able to 
account for their departure, or receiving any modification 
from it. The more these intervals are prolonged, the 
more does this discontent increase, for the mind feels 
that many things are thus concealed from its knowledge 
of which it is its province to dispose, and it would not 
like to be told too often, as Crispin says to Geronte : 
" C'est votre lethargies But these difficulties are not 
insurmountable by the skill of art ; if the mind becomes 



158 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

easily alarmed at that which, without its consent, dis- 
turbs the settled habits of its character, it is easy to 
make it forget them. Place it in view of the object 
towards which you have succeeded in directing its 
desires, and in its forward spring to reach it, it will no 
longer care to measure the space which you compel 
it to traverse. When reading an interesting work, our 
strongly-excited attention transports us without difficulty 
from one time to another; our thought concentrates 
itself upon the event at which we expect to arrive, and 
sees nothing in the interval which separates us from it ; 
and as it enables us to reach it, without having, as it 
were, changed our place, we are scarcely conscious that 
we have been obliged to change the time. When 
Claudius and Laertes have agreed together upon the 
duel in which Hamlet is to be slain, between that 
moment and the consummation of their plans we care 
little to know whether two hours or a week have 
elapsed. 

This arises from the fact that the chain of the impres- 
sions has not been broken, and the position of the 
characters has not been changed ; their places have 
continued the same ; their ardour is not less energetic ; 
time has not acted upon them • it counts for nothing in 
the feelings with which they inspire us • it finds them, 
and us with them, in the same disposition of soul ; and 
thus the two periods are brought together by that unity 
of impression which makes us say, when thinking of an 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 159 

event which occurred long ago, but the traces of which 
are still fresh in our memory, " It seems as though it 
had happened only yesterday." 

In fact, what care we about the time which elapses 
between the actions with which Macbeth fills up his 
career of crime ^ When he commands the murder of 
Banquo, the assassination of Duncan is still present to 
our eyes, and seems as though it had been committed 
only yesterday • and when Macbeth determines upon the 
massacre of Macduff's family, we fancy we see him still 
pale from the apparition of Banquo's ghost. None of 
his actions has terminated without necessitating the 
action which follows it ; they announce and involve each 
other, thus forcing the imagination to go forward, full of 
trouble and sad expectation. Macbeth, who, after having 
killed Duncan, is urged, by the very terror which he 
feels at his crime, to kill the chamberlains/ to whom he 
intends to attribute the murder, does not permit us to 
doubt the facility with which he will commit new crimes 
whenever occasion requires. The witches, who, at the 
opening of the play, have taken possession of his destiny, 
do not allow us to hope that they will grant any respite 
to the ambition and the necessities of his crimes. Thus 
all the threads are laid open to our eyes from the begin- 
ning ; we follow, we anticipate the course of events ; we 
stint no haste to arrive at that which our imagination 
devours beforehand ; intervals vanish with the succession 
of the ideas which should occupy them ; one succession 



160 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

alone is distinctly marked in our mind, and that is, the 
succession of the events which compose the absorbing 
spectacle which sweeps us onward in its rapidity. In our 
view, they are as closely connected in time as they are 
intimately linked together in thought ; and any duration 
that may separate them is a duration as empty and 
unperceived as that of sleep, — as all those epochs in 
which the soul is manifested by no sensible symptom of its 
existence. What, in our mind, is the connection of the 
hours in comparison with this train of ideas ? — and what 
poet, subjecting himself to unity of time, would deem it 
sufficient to establish, between the different parts of his 
work, that powerful bond of union which can result only 
from unity of impression ? So true is it that this alone 
is the object, whereas the others are only the means. 

These means may, undoubtedly, sometimes have their 
efficiency ; the rapidity of a great action executed, or a 
great event accomplished, within the space of a few 
hours, fills the imagination, and animates the soul, with 
a movement to which it yields with ardour. But few 
actions really permit so sudden an action ; few events 
are composed of parts so exactly connected in time and 
space ; and, without alluding to the improbabilities 
which are consequent upon their forced cohesion, the 
surprises which result from it very often disturb the 
unity of impression, which is the rigorous condition of 
dramatic illusion. Zaire, passing suddenly from her 
devoted love for Orosmane, to entire submission to the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 161 

faith and will of Lusignan, has some difficulty in 
restoring to us, in T ier new position, as much illusion 
as she has made us lose by so abrupt a change. 
Voltaire sought his effects in the contrast of perfectly 
happy love with love in despair ; a powerful means, it 
is true, but less ppwerful perhaps than the preoccupation 
of a constant and unchanging position, which develops 
itself only to redouble the feeling which it has at first 
inspired. When we have thoroughly established our- 
selves in an affection, it is far from prudent to attempt 
to move us in favour of an opposite affection. Corneille 
has not shown us Podrigue and Chimene together before 
the quarrel between their fathers • he felt so little desire 
to impress us with the idea of their happiness, that 
Chimene, when told of it, cannot believe it, and disturbs 
by her presentiments the too delightful position of which 
the poet is exceedingly careful not to put us in possession, 
lest we should afterwards find it too difficult to sacrifice 
it to that duty which will soon command us to leave it. 
In the same manner, we have become associated with 
the feelings of Polyeucte, and have trembled for him 
before becoming aware of the love of Pauline for Severe; 
if our first interest had been attached to this love, 
perhaps it would have been difficult for us afterwards 
to feel much for Polyeucte, whose presence would be 
importunate. Thus, when Zaire has awakened our 
emotion as a lover, we are inclined to think that she 
abandons the position in which she has placed us rather 



162 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

too easily, in order to fulfil her duty as a daughter and 
a Christian. The philosophical indifference which 
Voltaire has imparted to her in the first scene, in order 
to facilitate her subsequent conversion, renders still more 
improbable the clevotedness with which she so quickly 
enters upon a duty so recently discovered. If, on the 
other hand, at the outset, Voltaire had described her to 
us as troubled with scruples, and disquieted with regard 
to her happiness, fear would have prepared us before- 
hand to comprehend in all its extent, at its first appear- 
ance, the misfortune which threatens her, and to see her 
yield to it with that abandonment which is improbable 
because it is too sudden. 

The employment of sudden changes of fortune, by 
which it is attempted to disguise, beneath a great altera- 
tion in circumstances, the too sudden transitions which 
the rule of unity in point of time may impose, frequently 
renders the inconveniences of this rule more striking, by 
depriving it of the means of making preparation for the 
different impressions which it accumulates within too 
limited a space. It is, on the contrary, by a single 
impression, that Shakspeare, at least in his finest com- 
positions, takes possession, at the very outset, of our 
thought, and, by means of our thought, of space also. 
Beyond the magic circle which he has traced, he leaves 
nothing sufficiently powerful to interfere with the effect 
of the only unity of which he has need. Change of 
fortune may exist in reference to the persons of the 



SB AKSPEARE AXD HIS TIMES. 163 

drama, but never to the spectator. Before we are 
informed of Othello's happiness, we know that Iago is 
preparing to destroy it ; the Ghost which is to devote 
the life of Hamlet to the punishment of a crime, appears 
on the stage before he does ; and before we have seen 
Macbeth virtuous, the utterance of his name by the 
Witches tells us that he is destined to become guilty. 
In the same manner, in "Athalie," the whole idea of the 
drama is displayed, in the first scene, in the character 
and promises of the high priest; the impression is begun, 
and it will continue and increase always in the same 
direction. Thus, who could say that an interval of eight 
days, interposed, if necessary, between the promises of 
Joad and their performance, would have broken the unity 
of impression which results from the invariable constancy 
of his plans ? 

' To constancy of character, feelings, and resolutions 
exclusively belongs that moral unity which, braving 
time and distance, includes all the parts of an event in a 
compact action, in which the gaps of material unity are 
no longer perceptible. A violently excited passion could 
not aim at such an effect ; it has its momentary storms, 
the course of which, being subject to external and 
variable causes, must in a short time reach its term. As 
soon as jealousy has seized upon the heart of Othello, 
if any interval separated that moment from the time 
which witnesses the death of Desdemona, the unitv 
would be broken ; nothing would attest to us the link 



1M SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

which must unite the first transports of the Moor to his 
final resolution ; the action must therefore hasten 
rapidly forward, and must hurry him onward to his 
destruction, which a day's reflection would perhaps 
prevent him from consummating. In the same manner, 
the simple description of events, unless the presence of 
a great individual character should, by dominating over 
them, impress upon them its own unity, will make us 
feel the want of the material unities; and the efforts 
which Shakspeare has made, in his historical dramas, to 
approximate to them, or to disguise their absence, are a 
new homage paid to that moral unity which is sufficient 
for everything, when the poet possesses it, and which 
nothing can replace, when he has it not. In "Hamlet" 
and ■/ Macbeth," Shakspeare, inattentive to the course of 
time, allows it to pass unnoticed. In his historical 
plays, on the other hand, he conceals and dissembles its 
lapse by all the artifices that can deceive us in reference 
to its duration • the scenes follow and announce each 
other in such a way, that an interval of several years 
seems to be included within a few weeks, or even a few 
days. All the probabilities are sacrificed to this thea- 
trical unity, which time would break too easily between 
events which are not linked together by a uniform 
principle. The scene in which Richard II. learns from 
Aumerle the departure of Bolingbroke into exile, is 
that in which he announces that he is himself about to 
go to Ireland ; and it is not yet thoroughly known at 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 165 

Court whether he has actually embarked on this voyage, 
when the news is received of the disembarkation of 
Bolingbroke, returning with an army, under the pretext 
of asserting his rights to the succession of his father, 
who has died in the interval, but, in reality, to take 
possession of the^crown; in which attempt he has almost 
succeeded before Richard, cast by a tempest upon the 
coasts of England, can have been informed of his arrival. 
And we are told at the end of the play, which, dating 
from the banishment of Bolingbroke, cannot have lasted 
more than fifteen days, that Mowbray, who was exiled 
at the same time, has made several journeys to the 
Holy Land during the interval, and is at last dead 
in Italy. 

These monstrous extravagances would assuredly not 
be numbered among the proofs of Shakspeare's genius, 
if they did not attest the empire assumed over him by 
the great dramatic thought to which he sacrificed all 
beside. Whether in his historical plays, he multiplies 
improbabilities and impossibilities in order to conceal 
the flight of time, or whether, in his finest tragedies, he 
allows it to pass without the slightest notice, — he 
invariably pursues and attempts to maintain unity of 
impression, the great source of dramatic effect. We 
may see in "Macbeth," the true type of his system, 
with what art he overcomes the difficulties which arise 
from it, and links together in the soul of the spectator 
the chain of places and times which is constantly being 



166 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

broken in reality. Macbeth, when resolved on the 
destruction of Macduff, whom he fears, learns that he 
has taken flight into England • and he leaves the stage, 
announcing his intention to surprise his castle, and to 
put to death his wife, his children, and all who bear 
his name. The next scene opens in Macduff's castle, by 
a conversation between Lady Macduff and her relative, 
Rosse, who has come to inform her of her husband's 
departure, and to express his fears for her own safety. 
The two scenes, thus closely connected in thought, seem 
to be so in time also ; distance has disappeared ; and 
who would think of pointing out, as an interval of which 
some account should be given, the leagues which sepa- 
rate Macduff's castle from Macbeth's palace, and the 
time that would be required to traverse them. We 
have entered without effort into this new part of the 
position ; it follows its course ; the assassins appear ; 
the massacre commences. We pass into England ; we 
behold the arrival of Macduff in that country ; the 
terrible events of which he is ignorant fill up, for us, 
the interval which must separate his departure from his 
arrival. Rosse appears some time after him, and informs 
him of his misfortune. Both describe to Malcolm the 
desolation of Scotland, and the general hatred which 
Macbeth has incurred. The army which is destined to 
overthrow the tyrant is collected together, and the 
order for departure is given. But whilst the army is 
on its road, the poet recals our imagination towards 



.SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 167 

Macbeth ; with him we prepare for the approach of the 
troops, whose march is effected without anything occur- 
ring to inform us of its duration, or to lead us to make 
inquiries about it. Scarcely ever, in Shakspeare, do the 
personages of the drama arrive immediately in the place 
for which they h$ve set out ; so abrupt a conjunction 
would be contrary to the natural order of the succession 
of ideas. We have seen Richard II. set out for the 
castle of John of Gaunt ; it is therefore in John of 
Gaunt' s castle that we await the arrival of Richard, 
whose journey has taken place without our mind being 
able to complain of not having been consulted with 
regard to the time which it occupied. In the same 
manner, between two events evidently separated by an 
interval long enough for us not to like to see it disappear 
without taking some part in it, Shakspeare interposes a 
scene which may belong with equal propriety to either 
the first or the second epoch, and he makes us pass 
from one to the other without shocking us by its 
intimate connection with the scene which immediately 
precedes or follows it. Thus, in " King Lear," between 
the time when Lear divides his kingdom among his 
daughters, and the moment when Goneril, already tired 
of her father's presence, determines to get rid of him, — 
the scenes at Gloster's castle, and the commencement of 
Edmund's intrigue, are interposed. Guided by that 
instinct which is the science of genius, the poet knows 
that our imagination will traverse without effort both 



168 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

time and space with him, if he spares those moral 
improbabilities which could alone arrest its progress. 
With this view, he sometimes accumulates material un- 
likelihoods, and sometimes exhausts the ingenuity of his 
art ; but, ever attentive to the object at which he aims, 
he can reduce to unity of action those artifices and 
preparatory means which he employs to remove every- 
thing that could interfere with the dramatic illusion, and 
to dispose freely of our thought. 

Unity of action, being indispensable to unity of 
impression, could not escape Shakspeare's notice. But 
how, it may be asked, could he maintain it in the midst 
of so many events of so changeful and complicated a 
nature, — in that immense field which includes so many 
places, so many years, all conditions of society, and the 
development of so many positions ? Shakspeare suc- 
ceeded in maintaining it, nevertheless : in " Macbeth," 
"Hamlet," "Richard III," and " Romeo and Juliet," 
the action, though vast, does not cease to be one, rapid 
and complete. This is because the poet has seized 
upon its fundamental condition, which consists in 
placing the centre of interest where he finds the centre 
of action. The character which gives movement to the 
drama, is also the one upon which the moral agitation 
of the spectator is bestowed. Duplicity of action, or at 
least of interest, has been urged against Racine's tragedy 
of " Andromaque," and the charge is not without foun- 
dation ; it is not that all the parts of the action do not 









SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 169 

work together towards the same end, but the interest is 
divided, and the centre of action is uncertain. If 
Shakspeare had had to treat of such a subject, which it 
must be said is not in great conformity to the nature of 
his genius, he would have made Andromache the centre 
of the action as well as of the interest. Maternal love 
would have pervaded the entire drama, displaying its 
courage as well as its fears, its strength as well as its 
sorrows ; Shakspeare, indeed, would not have hesitated 
to introduce the child upon the stage, as Racine subse- 
quently did in "Athalie," when he had grown more 
bold. All the emotions of the spectator would have 
been directed towards a single point : we should have 
beheld Andromache, with greater activity, trying other 
means to save Astyanax than " the tears of her mother," 
and constantly riveting upon her son and herself an 
attention which Racine has too often diverted to the 
means of action which he was constrained to derive 
from the vicissitudes of the destiny of Hermione. 
According to the system imposed upon our dramatic 
poets in the seventeenth century, Hermione should be 
the centre of the action ; and so, in fact, she is. Upon 
a stage which daily became more subject to the autho- 
rity of the ladies and of the Court, love seemed destined 
to take the place of the fatality of the ancients : a blind 
power, as inflexible as fatality, and, like it, leading its 
victims towards an object defined from the very outset, 
love became the fixed point around which all things 



170 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

should revolve. In " Andromaque," love makes Her- 
mione a simple personage, swayed by her passion, 
referring to it everything that occurs beneath her view, 
and careful to bring events into subjection to herself, in 
order to make them serve and satisfy her affection : 
Hermione alone directs and gives movement to the 
drama ; Andromaque only appears to suffer the agony 
of a position as powerless as it is painful. Such an idea 
may admit of admirable developments of the passive 
affections of the heart, but it does not constitute a 
tragic action ; and in those developments which do 
not lead immediately to action, our interest runs the 
risk of wandering astray, and returns afterwards with 
difficulty into the only direction in which it can be 
maintained. 

When, on the contrary, the centre of action and the 
centre of interest are identical — when the attention of 
the spectator has been fixed upon the hero of the 
drama, at once active and unchanging, whose character, 
though it remains ever the same, will lead to incessant 
changes in his destiny — then the events in agitation 
around such a man, strike us only by their relation to 
him, and the impression which we receive from them 
assumes the colour which he has himself imparted to 
them. Richard III. proceeds from plot to plot ; every 
new success redoubles the terror with which we are 
inspired at the outset by his infernal genius ; the pity 
which each one of his victims successively awakes, 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 171 

becomes merged in the feelings of hate which accumu- 
late upon their persecutor ; none of these particular 
feelings diverts our impressions to its own advantage ; 
they are directed incessantly, and always with increasing 
vigour, towards the author of so many crimes ; and 
thus Richard, tke centre of action, is at the same time 
the centre of interest also ; for dramatic interest is not 
only the unquiet pity which we feel for misfortune, or 
the passionate affection with which we are inspired by 
virtue ; it is also hatred, the thirst for vengeance, the 
invocation of Heaven's justice upon the malefactor, as 
well as the prayer for the salvation of the innocent. All 
strong feelings, capable of exciting the human soul, can 
draw us in their train, and inspire us with passionate 
interest ; they have no need to promise us happiness, or 
to gain our attachment by tenderness : we can also raise 
ourselves to that sublime contempt for life which makes 
men heroes and martyrs, and to that noble indignation 
beneath which tyrants succumb. 

Every element may enter into an action thus reduced 
to one sole centre, from which emanate, and to which 
are related, all the events of the drama, and all the 
impressions of the spectator. Everything that moves 
the heart of man, everything that agitates his life, may 
combine to produce dramatic interest, provided that, 
being directed towards the same point, and marked 
with the same impress, the most various facts present 
themselves only as satellites of the principal fact, the 



172 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

brilliancy and power of Avhich they serve to augment. 
Nothing will appear trivial, insignificant, or puerile, if 
it imparts greater vitality to the predominant position, 
or greater depth to the general feeling. Grief is 
sometimes redoubled by the aspect of gaiety; in the 
midst of danger, a joke may increase our courage. 
Nothing is foreign to the impression but that which 
destroys it ; it nourishes itself, and gains greater power 
from everything that can mingle with it. The prattle of 
young Arthur with Hubert becomes heart-rending from 
the idea of the horrible barbarity which Hubert is about 
to practise upon him. We are filled with emotion by 
the sight of Lady Macduff lovingly amused by the witty 
sallies of her little son, whilst at her door are the 
assassins who have come to massacre that son, and her 
other children, and afterwards herself. Who, but for 
these circumstances, would take a deep interest in this 
scene of maternal childishness ? But, if this scene were 
omitted, should we hate Macbeth as much as we ought 
to do for this new crime ? In " Hamlet," not only is the 
scene of the gravediggers connected with the general idea 
of the piece, by the kind of meditations which it inspires • 
but — and we know it — it is Ophelia's grave which 
they are digging in Hamlet's presence ; and to Ophelia 
will relate, when he is informed of this circumstance, all 
the impressions which have been kindled in his soul by 
the sight of those hideous and despised bones, and the 
indifference which is felt for the mortal remains of those 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 173 

who were once beautiful and powerful, honoured or 
beloved. No detail of these mournful preparations is 
lost to the feeling which they occasion ■ the coarse 
insensibility of the men devoted to the habits of such a 
trade, their songs and jokes, all have their effect ; and 
the forms and Haeans of comedy thus enter, without 
effort, into tragedy, the impressions of which are never 
more keen than when we see them about to fall upon a 
man who is already their unwitting subject, and who is 
amusing himself in presence of the misfortune of which 
he is unaware. 

Without this use of the comic, and without this 
intervention of the inferior classes, how many dramatic 
effects, which contribute powerfully to the general 
effect, would become impossible ! Accommodate to the 
taste of the pleasantry of our age the scene with 
Macbeth's porter, and there is no one who will not 
shudder at the thought of the discovery that will follow 
this exhibition of jovial buffoonery, and of the spectacle 
of carnage still concealed beneath these remnants of the 
intoxication of a festival. If Hamlet were the first 
brought into connection with his father's ghost, what 
preparation and explanations would be indispensable 
to place us in the state of mind in which a prince, a 
man belonging to the highest class of society, must 
be in order to believe in a ghost ! But the phantom 
appears first to soldiers, men of simple mind, who 
are more ready to be alarmed than astonished at it ; 



174 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

and they relate the story to one another in the night- 
watch : — 



■Last night of all, 



When yoncT same star, that's westward from the pole, 
Had made his course t' illume that part of heaven 
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself, 
The bell then beating one, 

MARCELLUS. 

Peace ! break thee off : look, where it comes again ! " 

The effect of terror is produced, and we believe in the 
spectre before Hamlet has ever heard it mentioned. 

Nor is this all ; the intervention of the inferior classes 
furnishes Shakspeare with another means of effect, 
which would be impracticable in any other system. 
The poet who can take his actors from all ranks of 
society, and place them in all positions, may also bring 
everything into action, — that is to say, may remain 
constantly dramatic. In "Julius Caesar," the scene 
opens with a living picture of popular movements and 
feelings ; what explanation or conversation could make 
us so well acquainted with the nature of the seductive 
influence exercised by the Dictator over the Romans, of 
the kind of danger to which liberty is exposed, and of 
the error, as well as the peril, of the republicans who 
hope to restore liberty by the death of Caesar ? When 
Macbeth determines to get rid of Banquo, he has not to 
inform us of his project in the person of a confidant, or to 
receive an account of the execution of the deed in order 
to make us aware of it : he sends for the assassins and 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 175 

converses with them ; we witness the artifices by which 
a- tyrant renders the passions and misfortunes of man 
subservient to his designs ; and we afterwards see 
the murderers lie in wait for their victim, strike the 
fatal blow, and return, with blood-stained hands, to 
demand their reward. Banquo can then appear to 
us ; the real presence of crime has produced all 
its effect, and we reject none of the terrors which 
accompany it. 

When we desire to produce man upon the stage in all 
the energy of his nature, it is not too much to summon 
to our aid man as a whole, and to exhibit him under all 
the forms and in all the positions of which his existence 
admits. Such a representation is not merely more 
complete and striking, but it is also more truthful and 
accurate. We deceive the mind with regard to an event, 
if we present to it merely one salient part adorned with 
the colours of truth, whilst the other part is rejected and 
effaced in a conversation or a narrative. Thence results 
a false impression which, in more than one instance, has 
injured the effect of the finest works. " Athalie," that 
master-piece of our drama, still finds us imbued with a 
certain prejudice against Joad and in favour of Athalie, 
whom we do not hate sufficiently to rejoice in her 
destruction, and whom we do not fear enough to approve 
the artifice which draws her into the snare. And yet 
Athalie has not only massacred her son's children, in 
order that she might reign in their stead ; but she is a 



176 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

foreigner, maintained on the throne by foreign troops ; 
the enemy of the God adored by her people, she insults 
and braves Him by the presence and pomp of a foreign 
worship, whilst the national religion, stripped of its 
power and honours, and clung to with fear and trembling 
by only " a small number of zealous worshippers," daily 
expects to fall a victim to the hatred of Mathan, the 
insolent despotism of the Queen, and the avidity of her 
base courtiers. Here is, indeed, an exhibition of tyranny 
and misfortune ; here is matter enough to drive the 
people to revolt, and to lead to conspiracies among the 
last defenders of their liberties. And all these facts are 
related in the speeches of Joad, of Abner, of Mathan, 
and even of Athalie herself. But they are displayed in 
speeches only ; all that we behold in action is Joad 
conspiring with the means which his enemy still leaves 
at his disposal, and the imposing grandeur of the 
character of Athalie. The conspiracy is under our eyes ; 
but we have only heard of tyranny. If the action had 
revealed to us the evils which oppression involves ; if we 
had beheld Joad excited and stimulated to revolt by 
the cries of the unhappy victims of the vexations of 
the foreigner ; if the patriotic and religious indignation 
of the people against a power " lavish of the blood of 
the defenceless," had given legitimacy to Joad's con- 
duct in our eyes — the action when thus completed 
would leave no uncertainty in our minds \ and " Athalie " 
would perhaps present to us the ideal of dramatic 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 177 

poetry, at least, according to our conception of it at 
the present time. 

Though easily attained among the Greeks, whose life 
and feelings might be summed up in a few large and 
simple features, this ideal did not present itself to modern 
nations under foiwns sufficiently general and pure to 
receive the application of the rules laid down in accord- 
ance with the ancient models. France, in order to 
adopt them, was compelled to limit its field, in some 
sort, to one corner of human existence. Our poets have 
employed all the powers of genius to turn this narrow 
space to advantage ; the abysses of the heart have been 
sounded* to their utmost depth, but not in all their 
dimensions. Dramatic illusion has been sought at its 
true source, but it has not been required to furnish all 
the effects that might have been obtained from it. 
Shakspeare offers to us a more fruitful and a vaster 
system. It would be a strange mistake to suppose that 
he has discovered and brought to light all its wealth. 
When we embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and 
human nature in all the conditions of man upon earth, 
we enter into possession of an exhaustless treasure. It 
is the peculiar advantage of such a system, that it 
escapes, by its extent, from the dominion of any 
particular genius. We may discover its principles in 
Shakspeare's works ; but he was not fully acquainted 
with them, nor did he always respect them. He should 
serve as an example, not as a model. Some men, even 



178 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

of superior talent, have attempted to write plays according 
to Shakspeare's taste, without perceiving that they were 
deficient in one important qualification for the task ; and 
that was, to write as he did, to write them for our age, 
just as Shakspeare's plays were written for the age in 
which he lived. This is an enterprise, the difficulties of 
which have hitherto, perhaps, been maturely considered 
by no one. We have seen how much art and effort was 
employed by Shakspeare to surmount those which are 
inherent in his system. They are still greater in our 
times, and would unveil themselves much more com- 
pletely to the spirit of criticism which now accompanies 
the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with 
spectators of more fastidious taste, and of more idle and 
inattentive imagination, that the poet would have to do, 
who should venture to follow in Shakspeare's footsteps. 
He would be called upon to give movement to per- 
sonages embarrassed in much more complicated interests, 
pre-occupied with much more various feelings, and 
subject to less simple habits of mind, and to less decided 
tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the 
scruples of conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought, 
frequently encumber Shakspeare's heroes; doubt is of 
little use among them, and the violence of their passions 
speedily transfers their belief to the side of their desires, 
or sets theh- actions above their belief. Hamlet alone 
presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by the 
enlightenment of society, in conflict with a position 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 1*9 

contrary to its laws ; and he needs a supernatural appari- 
tion to determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to 
accomplish his project. If incessantly placed in an 
analogous position, the personages of a tragedy conceived 
at the present day, according to the romantic system, 
would offer us the same picture of indecision. Ideas 
now crowd and intersect each other in the mind of 
man, duties multiply in his conscience, and obstacles 
and bonds around his life. Instead of those electric 
brains, prompt to communicate the spark which they 
have received, — instead of those ardent and simple-minded 
men, whose projects, like Macbeth's, "will to hand," — the 
world now presents to the poet minds like Hamlet's, 
deep in the observation of those inward conflicts which 
our classical system has derived from a state of society 
more advanced than that of the time in which Shakspeare 
lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the neces- 
sary consequences of modern civilisation, might become, 
even in their simplest form of expression, a troublesome 
burden, which it would be difficult to carry through the 
rapid evolutions and bold advances of the romantic 
system. 

We must, however, satisfy every demand; success 
itself requires it. The reason must be contented at 
the same time that the imagination is occupied. The 
progress of taste, of enlightenment, of society, and of 
mankind, must serve, not to diminish or disturb our 
enjoyment, but to render them worthy of ourselves, and 

N 2 



180 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

capable of supplying the new wants which we have 
contracted. Advance without rule and art in the 
romantic system, and you will produce melodrames 
calculated to excite a passing emotion in the multitude, 
but in the multitude alone, and for a few days ; just as, 
by dragging along without originality in the classical 
system, you will satisfy only that cold literary class, 
who are acquainted with nothing in nature which is 
more important than the interests of versification, or 
more imposing than the three unities. This is not the 
work of the poet who is called to power and destined 
for glory * he acts upon a grander scale, and can address 
the superior intellects, as well as the general and simple 
faculties of all men. It is doubtless necessary that the 
crowd should throng to behold those dramatic works of 
which you desire to make a national spectacle ; but do 
not hope to become national if you do not unite in your 
festivities all those classes of persons and minds, whose 
well-arranged hierarchy raises a nation to its loftiest 
dignity. Genius is bound to follow human nature in 
all its developments ; its strength consists in finding 
within itself the means for constantly satisfying the 
whole of the public. The same task is now imposed 
upon government and upon poetry ; both should exist 
for all, and suffice at once for the wants of the masses 
and for the requirements of the most exalted minds. 

Doubtless stopped in its course by these conditions, 
the full severity of which will only be revealed to the 



SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 181 

talent that can comply with them, dramatic art, even in 
England, where, under the protection of Shakspeare, 
it would have liberty to attempt anything, scarcely 
ventures, at the present day, to endeavour timidly to 
follow him. Meanwhile England, France, and the whole 
of Europe demand of the drama pleasures and emotions 
that can no longer be supplied by the inanimate repre- 
sentation of a world that has ceased to exist. The 
classical system had its origin in the life of its time • 
that time has passed ; its image subsists in brilliant 
colours in its works, but can no more be reproduced. 
Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of 
another age are now beginning to arise. What will be 
their form? I cannot tell; but the ground upon which 
their foundations may rest is already perceptible. This 
ground is not the ground of Corneille and Racine, nor 
is it that of Shakspeare ; it is our own ; but Shakspeare's 
system, as it appears to me, may furnish the plans 
according to which genius ought now to work. This 
system alone includes all those social conditions and all 
those general or diverse feelings, the simultaneous con- 
junction and activity of which constitute for us, at the 
present day, the spectacle of human things. Witnesses, 
during thirty years, of the greatest revolutions of society, 
we shall no longer willingly confine the movement 
of our mind within the narrow space of some family 
event, or the agitations of a purely individual passion. 
The nature and destiny of man have appeared to us 



182 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES. 

under their most striking and their simplest aspect, in 
all their extent and in all their variableness. We require 
pictures in which this spectacle is reproduced, in which 
man is displayed in his completeness, and excites our 
entire sympathy. The moral dispositions which impose 
this necessity upon poetry will not change ; but we 
shall see them, on the contrary, manifesting themselves 
more plainly, and receiving greater development, day by 
day. Interests, duties, and a movement common to 
all classes of citizens, will strengthen, among them, that 
chain of habitual relations with which all public feelings 
connect themselves. Never could dramatic art have 
taken its subjects from an order of ideas at once more 
popular and more elevated ; never was the connection be- 
tween the most vulgar interests of man and the principles 
upon which his highest destinies are dependent, more 
clearly present to all minds ; and the importance of an 
event may now appear in its pettiest details as well as 
in its mightiest results. In this state of society, a new 
dramatic system ought to be established. It should be 
liberal and free, but not without principles and laws. 
It should establish itself, like liberty, not upon disorder 
and forgetfulness of every check, but upon rules more 
severe and more difficult of observance, perhaps, than 
those which are still enforced to maintain what is called 
order against what is designated license. 



HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES 



PRINCIPAL DRAMAS OF SHAKSPEARE. 



ROMEO AND JULIET, 

(1595.) 

Two powerful families of Verona, the Montecchi and 
the Capelletti (the Montagues and Capulets), had long- 
lived on terms of such hostility to each other, that it 
had frequently led to sanguinary conflicts in the open 
streets. Alberto della Scala, the second perpetual 
captain of Verona, had ineffectually endeavoured to 
reconcile them ; but he succeeded so far in bridling 
their enmity, that "when they met," says Girolamo della 
Corte, the historian of Verona, " the younger men made 
way for their elders, and they mutually exchanged 
salutations." 

In the year 1303, under the reign of Bartolommeo 
della Scala, who had been chosen perpetual captain on 
the death of his father Alberto, Antonio Capelletto, the 
leader of his faction, gave a great entertainment during 
the carnival, to which he invited most of the nobility 
of Verona, Romeo Montecchio, who was about twenty- 
one years of age, and one of the handsomest and most 
amiable young men in the city, went thither in a mask, 



186 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

accompanied by some of his friends. After some time, 
taking off his mask, lie sat down in a corner, from 
which he could see and be seen. Much astonishment 
was felt at the boldness with which he had thus 
ventured in the midst of Ins enemies. However, as he 
was young and of agreeable manners, the Capulets, 
says the historian, " did not pay so much attention to 
his presence as they might have done if he had been 
older." His eyes and those of Giidietta Capelletto 
soon met, and being equally struck with admiration, 
they did not cease to look at each other. The festivities 
terminated with a dance, which, " among us," says 
Girolamo, "is called the hat-dance (dal ccqjjjello)" in 
which Romeo engaged • but, after having danced a few 
figures with his partner, he left her to join Juliet, who 
was dancing with another. " Immediately that she felt 
him touch her hand, she said, ' Blessed be your 
coming ! ' And he, pressing her hand, replied, ' What 
blessing do you receive from it, lady?' And she 
answered with a smile : c Be not surprised, sit, that I 
bless your coming • Signor Mercurio had been chilling 
me for a long while, but by your politeness you have 
restored me to warmth/ (The hands of this young man, 
who was called Mercurio the Squinter, and who was 
beloved by every one for the charms of his mind, were 
always colder than ice.) To these words, Romeo 
replied, ' I am greatly delighted to do you service in 
anything.' When the dance was over, Juliet could say 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 1S7 

no more than this : ' Alas ! I am more yours than my 
own.' " 

Romeo having repaired on several occasions to a 
small street upon which Juliet's windows looked out, 
one evening she recognised him "by his sneezing or 
some other sign," and opened the window; they saluted 
each other very courteously {cortesissimamente), and, 
after having conversed for a long while of their loves, 
they agreed that they must be married, whatever might 
happen; and that the ceremony should be performed 
by Friar Leonardo, a Franciscan monk, who was "a 
theologian, a great philosopher, an admirable distiller, a 
proficient in the art of magic," and the confessor of 
nearly all the town. Romeo went to see this worthy ; 
and the monk, thinking of the credit which he would 
gain, not only with the perpetual captain, but also with 
the whole city, if he succeeded in reconciling the two 
families, acceded to the request of the young couple. 
On Quadragesima Sunday, when confession was obliga- 
tory, Juliet went with her mother to the church of St, 
Francis in the citadel ; and having entered first into the 
confessional, on the other side of which Romeo was 
stationed, they received the nuptial benediction through 
the window of the confessional, which the monk had 
had the kindness to leave open. Afterwards, by the 
connivance of a very adroit old muse of Juliet's, they 
spent the night together in her garden. 

However, after the festival of Easter, a numerous 



188 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

troop of Capulets met, at a little distance from the gates 
of Verona, a band of Montagues,, and attacked them, at 
the instigation of Tebaldo, a cousin-german of Juliet, 
who, seeing Romeo use every effort to put an end to 
the combat, went up to him, and, forcing him to defend 
himself, received a sword- thrust in his throat, from 
which he fell dead on the spot. Romeo was banished; 
and a short time afterwards, Juliet, on the point of 
finding herself compelled to marry another, had recourse 
to Friar Leonardo, who gave her a powder to swallow, 
by means of which she would appear to be dead, and 
would be interred in the family vault, which happened 
to be in the church attached to Leonardo's convent. 
The monk was to deliver her immediately from her 
grave, and to send her in disguise to Mantua, where 
Romeo was residing; and he promised to inform her 
lover of their design. 

Matters were arranged as Leonardo had suggested ; 
but Romeo, having been informed of Juliet's death by 
an indirect source, before he received the monk's letter, 
set out at once for Verona with a single domestic, and, 
having provided himself with a violent poison, hastened 
to the tomb, opened it, bathed Juliet's body with his 
tears, swallowed the poison, and died. Juliet, awaking 
from her trance the instant afterwards, seeing Romeo 
dead, and learning from the monk, who had come up in 
the meanwhile, all that had happened, was seized with 
such violent paroxysms of grief, that " without being able 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 189 

to utter a word, she fell dead upon the bosom of her 
Romeo/' 1 

This story is told as true by Girolamo della Corte, 
and he assures his readers that he had often seen the 
tomb of Romeo and Juliet, which, rising a little above 
the level of the ground, and being situated near a well, 
then served as a laundry to the orphan asylum of 
St. Francis, which was being built in that locality. He 
relates, at the same time, that the Cavalier Gerardo 
Boldiero, his uncle, who had first taken him to this tomb, 
had pointed out to him, at a corner of the wall, near the 
Capuchin Convent, the place from which he had heard 
it said that the bones of Romeo and Juliet, and of 
several other persons, had been transferred a great 
number of years before. Captain Breval, in his Travels, 
also mentions that he saw at Verona, in 1762, an old 
building which was then an orphan asylum, and which 
his guide informed him had once contained the tomb of 
Romeo and Juliet, but that it no longer existed. 

It was probably not in accordance with the narrative 
of Girolamo della Corte that Shakspeare composed his 
tragedy. It was first performed, as it would appear, 
in 1595, under the patronage of Lord Hunsdon, the 
Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth, and was printed 
for the first time in 1597. Now, the work of 
Girolamo della Corte, which was intended to contain 

1 See Girolamo della Corte, "Istorie di Verona," vol. i., pp. 589 et seq., ed. 
1594. 



190 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

twenty-two books, was interrupted in the middle of 
the twentieth book, and in the year 1560, by the illness 
of the author. We learn, moreover, from the editor's 
preface, that this illness was prolonged, and terminated 
in the death of the historian; that the necessity for 
revising a work, to which Girolamo himself had been 
unable to give the finishing stroke, occupied a con- 
siderable period ; and finally, that the lawsuits, " both 
civil and criminal," with which the editor was tor- 
mented, prevented him from bringing his undertaking 
to a conclusion as promptly as he could have desired ; so 
that the work of Girolamo could not have been pub- 
lished until a long while after his death. The edition 
of 1594 is, therefore, to all appearance, the first edition, 
and could scarcely have fallen into Shakspeare's hands so 
early as 1595. 

But the history of Romeo and Juliet, which was 
doubtless very popular at Verona, had already formed 
the subject of a novel by Luigi da Porto, published at 
Venice in 1535, six years after the death of the author, 
under the title of " La Giulietta." This novel was 
reprinted, translated, and imitated in several languages, 
and furnished Arthur Brooke with the subject of an 
English poem, which was published in 1562, and from 
which Shakspeare certainly derived the subject of his 
tragedy. 1 The imitation is complete. Juliet, in Brooke's 

1 The title is, " The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet, containing a 
rare Example of true Constancie ; with the Subtill Counsels and Practises of 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 191 

poem, as well as in the novel of Luigi da Porto, kills 
herself with Romeo's dagger, instead of dying of grief, 
as in the history of Girolamo della Corte ; but it is a 
singular circumstance, that both Arthur Brooke's poem 
and Shakspeare's tragedy make Romeo die, as in the 
history, before Juliet awakes, whereas, in the novel of 
Luigi da Porto, he does not die until after he has 
witnessed her restoration to life, and had a scene of 
sorrowful farewell with her. Shakspeare has been 
blamed for not having adopted this version, which 
would have furnished him with a very pathetic position ; 
and it has been inferred that he was not acquainted with 
the Italian novel, although it had been translated into 
English. Several circumstances, however, give us reason 
to believe that Shakspeare was acquainted with this 
translation. As for his motives for preferring the poet's 
narrative to that of the novelist, he may have had many ; 
in the first place, to account for his departing in so 
important a point from the novel of Luigi da Porto, 
which he has followed most scrupulously in almost every 
other particular, perhaps Arthur Brooke, the author of 
the poem, may have had some knowledge of the true 
history, as related by Girolamo della Corte. Being a 
contemporary of Shakspeare, he may have communicated 
this to him, and Shakspeare's careful conformity, as far 
as he was able, to history, or to the narratives received 

an old Fryer, and their ill-event." This poem has been reprinted at the end 
of the tragedy in the large editions of Shakspeare; among others, in 
Malone's edition. 



192 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

as such, would not have allowed him to hesitate as to his 
choice. Moreover — and this was probably the true reason 
of the poet — Shakspeare very seldom precedes a strong 
resolution by long speeches. As Macbeth says i — 

" Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives." 

Whatever anguish reflection may add to grief, it fixes 
the mind on too large a number of objects not to distract 
it from the single and absorbing idea which leads to 
desperate actions. After having received Romeo's fare- 
well, and lamented his dea^h in concert with him, it 
might have happened that Juliet would have bewailed 
him all her life instead of killing herself on the spot. 
Garrick re-wrote the scene in the monument, in accord- 
ance with the supposition adopted in the novel of Luigi 
da Porto ; the scene is touching, but, as was perhaps 
inevitable in such a situation, which it would be impos- 
sible to delineate in words, the feelings are too much 
and too little agitated, and the despair is either excessive 
or not sufficiently violent. In the laconism of Shakspeare's 
" Romeo and Juliet," in these last moments, there is 
much more passion and truth. 

This laconism is all the more remarkable, because 
during the whole course of the play, Shakspeare has 
abandoned himself without constraint to that abundance 
of reflection and discourse which is one of the character- 
istics of his genius. Nowhere is the contrast more 
striking between the depth of the feelings which the 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 193 

poet describes, and the form in which he expresses 
them. Shakspeare excels in seeing onr human feel- 
ings as they really exist in nature, without premedi- 
tation, without any labour of man upon himself, 
ingenuous and impetuous, mingled of good and evil, 
of vulgar instincts and sublime inspirations, just as the 
human soul is, in its primitive and spontaneous state. 
What can be more truthful than the love of Romeo 
and Juliet, so young, so ardent, so unreflecting, full at 
at once of physical passion and of moral tenderness, 
without restraint and yet without coarseness, because 
delicacy of heart ever combines with the transports of 
the senses ! There is nothing subtle or factitious in it, 
and nothing cleverly arranged by the poet ; it is neither 
the pure love of piously exalted imaginations, nor the 
licentious love of palled and perverted lives \ it is love itself, 
—love complete, involuntary and sovereign, as it bursts 
forth in early youth, in the heart of man, at once simple 
and diverse, as God made it. "Romeo and Juliet" is truly 
the tragedy of love, as " Othello " is that of jealousy, 
and " Macbeth " that of ambition. Each of the great 
dramas of Shakspeare is dedicated to one of the great 
feelings of humanity ; and the feeling which pervades the 
drama is, in very reality, that which occupies and possesses 
the human soul when under its influence. Shakspeare 
omits, adds and alters nothing • he brings it on the stage 
simply and boldly, in its energetic and complete truth. 
Pass now from the substance to the form, and from 



194 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

the feeling itself to the language in which it is clothed 
by the poet ; and observe the contrast ! In proportion 
as the feeling is true and profoundly known and under- 
stood, its expression is often factitious, laden with 
developments and ornaments in which the mind of the 
poet takes delight, but which do not flow naturally from 
the lips of a dramatic personage. Of all Shakspeare's 
great dramas, " Romeo and Juliet " is, perhaps, the one 
in which this fault is most abundant. We might almost 
say that Shakspeare had attempted to imitate that 
copiousness of words, and that verbose facility, which, 
in literature as well as life, generally characterise the 
peoples of the South. He had certainly read, at least 
in translation, some of the Italian poets j and the 
innumerable subtleties interwoven, as it were, into the 
language of all the personages in " Romeo and Juliet," 
and the introduction of continual comparisons with the 
sun, the flowers, and the stars, though often brilliant and 
graceful, are evidently an imitation of the style of the 
sonnets, and a debt paid to local colouring. It is, 
perhaps, because the Italian sonnets almost always adopt 
a plaintive tone, that choice and exaggeration of language 
are particularly perceptible in the complaints of the two 
lovers. The expression of their brief happiness is, 
especially in the mouth of Juliet, of ravishing simplicity ; 
and when they reach the final term of their destiny, 
when the poet enters upon the last scene of this mournful 
tragedy, he renounces all his attempts at imitation, and 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 195 

all his wittily wise reflections. His characters, who, says 
Johnson, " have a conceit left them in their misery," lose 
this peculiarity when misery has struck its heavy blows • 
the imagination ceases to play ; passion itself no longer 
appears, unless united to solid, serious, and almost stern 
feelings ; and that mistress, who was so eager for the 
joys of love, Juliet, when threatened in her conjugal 
fidelity, thinks of nothing but the fulfilment of her 
duties, and how she may remain without blemish the 
wife of her dear Romeo. What an admirable trait of 
moral sense and good sense is this in a genius devoted to 
the delineation of passion ! 

However, Shakspeare was mistaken when he thought 
that, by prodigality of reflections, imagery and words, 
he was imitating Italy and her poets. At least he was 
not imitating the masters of Italian poetry, his equals, 
and the only ones who deserved his notice. Between 
them and him, the difference is immense and singular. 
It is in comprehension of the natural feelings that 
Shakspeare excels, and he depicts them with as much 
simplicity and truth of substance, as he clothes them 
with affectation and sometimes whimsicality of language. 
It is, on the contrary, into these feelings themselves, 
that the great Italian poets of the fourteenth century, 
and especially Petrarch, frequently introduce as much 
refinement and subtlety as elevation and grace ; they 
alter and transform, according to their religious and 
moral beliefs, or even to their literary tastes, those 

o 2 



196 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

instincts and passions of the human heart to which 
Shakspeare leaves their native physiognomy and liberty. 
What can be less similar than the love of Petrarch for 
Laura, and that of Juliet for Romeo ? In compensation, 
the expression, in Petrarch, is almost always as natural 
as the feeling is refined ; and whereas Shakspeare presents 
perfectly simple and true emotions beneath a strange and 
affected form, Petrarch lends to mystical, or at least 
singular and very restrained emotions, all the charm of a 
simple and pure form. 

I will quote only one example of this difference 
between the two poets, but it is a very striking 
example, for it is one in which both have tried their 
powers upon the same position, the same feeling, and 
almost the same image. 

Laura is dead. Petrarch is desirous of depicting, 
on her entrance upon the sleep of death, her whom he 
had painted, so frequently and with such charming 
passion, in the brilliancy of life and youth : — 

" Non come fiamma che per forza e spenta. 

Ma che per se medesma si consume, 

Se n'ando in pace l'animo contenta. 
A guisa d'un soave e chiaro lume, 

Cui nutrimento a poco a poco manca, 

Tenendo al fin il suo usato costume ; 
Pallida no, ma piu che neve bianca 

Che senza vento in un bel colle fiocchi, 

Parea posar come persona stanca. 
Quasi un dolce dormir ne' suoi begli occhi, 

Sendo lo sperto gia de lei diviso, 

Era quel che morir chiaman gli sciocchi, 
Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso." l 



1 Petrarch, " Trionfo della Morte," cap. i., lines 160— 172. 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 197 

The following translation is from the pen of Captain 
Macgregor : — 

" Not as a flame wliicli suddenly is spent, 
But one that gently finds its natural close, 
To heaven, in peace, her willing spirit rose ; 
As, nutriment denied, a lovely light, 
By fine gradations failing, less, less bright, 
E'en to the last gives forth a lambent glow : 
Not pale, but fairer than the virgin snow, 
Falling, when winds are laid, on earth's green breast, 
She seem'd a saint from life's vain toils at rest. 
As if a sweet sleep o'er those bright eyes came, 

Her spirit mounted to the throne of grace ! 
If this we, in our folly, Death do name, 

Then Death seem'd lovely on that lovely face." a 

Juliet also is dead. Romeo contemplates her as she 
lies in her tomb, and he also expatiates upon her 
beauty : — 

* * * " O, my love ! my wife ! 
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, 
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty ; 
Thou art not conquer'd ; beauty's ensign yet 
Is crimson in thy lips, and on thy cheeks, 
And death's pale flag is not advanced there." 

I need not insist upon the comparison ; who does 
not feel how much more simple and beautiful the form 
of expression is in Petrarch? It is the brilliant and 
flowing poetry of the south, beside the strong, rough, 
and vigorous imagination of the north. 

The love of Romeo for Rosaline, is an invention of 
Luigi da Porto, retained in the poem of Arthur Brooke. 
This invention imparts so little interest to the first 
acts of the drama that Shakspeare probably adopted it 

1 Macgregor's " Odes of Petrarch," p. 220. 



198 SHAKSPE ARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

merely with a view to giving greater effect to that 
character of suddenness which distinguishes the 
passions of a southern clime. The part of Mercutio 
was suggested to him by these lines of the English 
poem : — 

" A courtier that eche where was highly had in price, 
For he was courteous of his speeche, and pleasant of devise. 
Even as a lyon would emong the lambs be bolde, 
Such was emong the bashful maydes Mercutio to beholde." 

Such was, doubtless, the del air in Shakspeare's time, 
and it is as the type of the amiable and amusing 
companion that he has described Mercutio. However, 
though he was not bold enough to attack, like Moliere, 
the ridiculous absurdities of the Court, he very frequently 
makes it evident that its tone was a burden to him ; 
and the part of Mercutio seems to have been a great tax 
upon his taste and uprightness of mind. Dry den relates, 
as a tradition of his time, that Shakspeare used to say, 
" that he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, 
lest he should have been killed by him." Mercutio has, 
nevertheless, had many zealous partisans in England ; 
among others, Johnson, who, on this occasion, soundly 
rates Dryden for his irreverent words regarding the 
witty Mercutio, " some of whose sallies," he says, " are 
perhaps out of the reach of Dryden." Shakspeare's 
aversion for the kind of wit of which he has been 
so lavish in " Romeo and Juliet," is sufficiently 
proved by Eriar Laurence's injunction to Romeo 



ROMEO AND JULIET. 199 

when lie begins to explain his position in the sonnet 
style : — 

" Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift ; 
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift." 

Friar Laurence is the wise man of the play, and his 
speeches are in general as simple as it was allowable for 
those of a philosopher to be in his time. 

The part of Juliet's nurse also contains but few of 
these subtleties, which Shakspeare seems to have reserved, 
in this work, to persons of the higher classes, and some- 
times to the valets who ape their manners. The character 
of the nurse is indicated in Arthur Brooke's poem ; in 
which, however, it is far from possessing the same homely 
truthfulness as in Shakspeare' s drama. 

Wherever they are not disfigured by conceits, the lines 
in " Romeo and Juliet " are perhaps the most graceful 
and brilliant that ever flowed from Shakspeare' s pen. 
They are, for the most part, written in rhyme, another 
homage paid to Italian habits. 



HAMLET. 

e 

(1596.) 

" Hamlet " is not the finest of Shakspeare's dramas ; 
" Macbeth/' and, I think, " Othello " also, are, on the 
whole, superior to it : but it perhaps contains the most 
remarkable examples of its author's most sublime 
beauties, as well as of his most glaring defects. Never 
has he unveiled with more originality, depth, and dra- 
matic effect, the inmost state of a mighty soul j never also 
has he yielded with greater unrestraint to the terrible or 
burlesque fancies of his imagination, and to the abundant 
intemperance that is characteristic of a mind which 
hastens to diffuse its ideas without any selection, and 
which delights to render them striking by a strong, 
ingenious, and unexpected expression, without caring to 
give them a pure and natural form. 

According to his custom, Shakspeare took no trouble 
in " Hamlet," either to invent or to arrange his subject. 
He took the facts as he found them recorded in the 
fabulous stories of the ancient history of Denmark, by 
Saxo Grammaticus, which were transformed into tragical 



HAMLET. 201 



histories by Belleforest, about the middle of the sixteenth 
century, and were immediately translated and became 
popular in England, not only among the reading public, 
but also on the stage, for it appears certain that six or 
seven years before Shakspeare, in 1589, an English 
poet, named Thomas Kyd, had already written a tragedy 
on the subject of Hamlet. This is the text of the 
historical romance out of which, as a sculptor chisels 
a statue from a block of marble, Shakspeare modelled 
his drama, 

" Eengon, having secretly assembled certain men, and 
perceiving himself strong enough to execute his enter- 
prise, Horvendile, his brother, being at a banquet with 
his friends, suddenly set upon him, where he slew him 
as traitorously as cunningly he purged himself of so 
detestable a murder to his subjects ; for that before he 
had any violent or bloody hands, or once committed 
parricide upon his brother, he had incestuously abused 
his wife, whose honour he ought to have sought and 
procured, as traitorously he pursued and effected his 
destruction. * * * 

" Boldened and encouraged by his impunity, Eengon 
ventured to couple himself in marriage with her whom 
he used as his concubine during good Horvendile' s life, 
* * * and the unfortunate and wicked woman, 
that had received the honour to be the wife of one of the 
valiantest and wisest princes of the North, imbased her- 
self in such vile sort as to falsify her faith unto him, 



202 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

and, which is worse, to marry him that had been the 
tyrannous murderer of her lawful husband. * * * 

" Geruth having so much forgotten herself, the prince 
Hamblet perceiving himself to be in danger of his life, 
as being abandoned of his own mother, to beguile the 
tyrant in his subtleties, counterfeited the madman with 
such craft and subtle practises that he made show as if 
he had utterly lost his wits ; and under that veil he 
covered his pretence, and defended his life from the 
treasons and practises of the tyrant his uncle. For 
every day being in the Queen's palace (who as then was 
more careful to please her whore-master, than ready to 
revenge the cruel death of her husband, or to restore 
her son to his inheritance), he rent and tore his clothes, 
wallowing and lying in the dirt and mire, running 
through the streets like a man distraught, not speaking 
one word, but such as seemed to proceed of madness 
and mere frenzy ; all his actions and gestures being no 
other than the right countenances of a man wholly 
deprived of all reason and understanding, in such sort, 
that as then he seemed fit for nothing but to make sport 
to the pages and ruffling courtiers that attended in the 
Court of his uncle and father-in-law. But many times 
he did divers actions of great and deep consideration, 
and often made such and so fit answers, that a wise man 
would soon have judged from what spirit so fine an 
invention might proceed. * * * 

" Hamblet likewise had intelligence in what danger 



HAMLET. 203 

he was like to fall, if by any means he seemed to obey, 
or once like the wanton toys and vicious provocations of 
the gentlewoman sent to him by his uncle ; which much 
abashed the prince, as then wholly being in affection to 
the lady ; but by her he was likewise informed of the 
treason, as being one that from her infancy loved and 
favoured him, and would have been exceeding sorrowful 
for his misfortune. * * * 

" Among the friends of Fengon, there was one that 
above all the rest doubted of Hamblet's practises in 
counterfeiting the madman. His device to entrap 
Hamblet in his subtleties was thus — that King Fengon 
should make as though he were to go some long voyage 
concerning affairs of great importance, and that in the 
mean time Hamblet should be shut up alone in a cham- 
ber with his mother, wherein some other should secretly 
be hidden behind the hangings, there to stand and hear 
their speeches, and the complots by them to be taken 
concerning the accomplishment of the dissembhng fool's 
pretence ; * * * and withal offered himself to be 
the man that should stand to hearken and bear witness 
of Hamblet's speeches with his mother. This invention 
pleased the King exceeding well. * * * 

"Meantime, the counsellor entered secretly into the 
Queen's chamber, and there hid himself behind the 
arras, not long before the Queen and Hamblet came 
thither, who, being crafty and politic, as soon as he was 
within the chamber, doubting some treason, used his 



204 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

ordinary manner of dissimulation, and began to come 
like a cock, beating with his arms (in such manner as 
cocks use to strike with their wings) upon the hangings 
of the chamber; whereby, feeling something stirring 
under them, he cried • A rat ! a rat ! ' and presently 
drawing his sword, thrust it into the hangings, which 
done, he pulled the counsellor, half-dead, out by the 
heels, and made an end of killing him. * * * By which 
means having discovered the ambush, and given the 
inventor thereof his just reward, he came again to his 
mother, who in the meantime wept and tormented 
herself; and having once again searched every corner 
of the chamber, perceiving himself to be alone with her, 
he began in sober and discreet manner to speak unto 
her, saying : — 

" ' What treason is this, most infamous woman of 
all that ever prostrated themselves to the will of an 
abominable whoremonger, who, under the veil of a 
dissembling creature, covereth the most wicked and 
detestable crime that man could ever imagine, or was 
committed ? Now may I be assured to trust you, that 
like a vile wanton adultress, altogether impudent and 
given over to her pleasure, runs spreading forth her 
arms to embrace the traitorous villainous tyrant that 
murdered my father, and most incestuously receivest 
the villain into the lawful bed of your loyal spouse ? * * 
O, Queen Geruth, it is licentiousness only that has made 
you deface out of your mind the memory of the valour 



HAMLET. 205 

and virtues of the good King, your husband and my 
father. * * * Be not offended, I pray you, madam, if, 
transported with dolour and grief, I speak so boldly 
unto you, and that I respect you less than duty 
requireth; for you having forgotten me, and wholly 
rejected the memory of the deceased King my father, 
must not be abashed if I also surpass the bounds and 
limits of due consideration. * * * ' 

"Although the Queen perceived herself nearly 
touched, and that Hamblet moved her to the quick, 
where she felt herself interested, nevertheless she forgot 
all disdain and wrath, which thereby she might as then 
have had, hearing herself so sharply chidden and 
reproved, to behold the gallant spirit of her son, and 
to think what she might hope, and the easier expect of 
his so great policy and wisdom. But on the one side, 
she durst not lift up her eyes to behold him, remem- 
bering her offence, and on the other side, she would 
gladly have embraced her son, in regard of the 
wise admonitions by him given unto her, which as 
then quenched the names of unbridled desire that 
before had moved her. * * * 

"After this, Eengon came to the Court again, and 
determined that Hamblet should be sent into England. 
Now, to bear him company were assigned two of 
Eengon's faithful ministers, bearing letters engraved in 
wood, that contained Hamblet's death, in such sort as 
he had advertised the King of England. But the subtle 



206 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

Danish prince, whilst his companions slept, having read 
the letters, and known his uncle's great treason, with 
the wicked and villainous minds of the two courtiers 
that led him to the slaughter, erased out the letters that 
concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, 
with commission to the King of England to hang his 
two companions. * * * 

" Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed 
in that devilish art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth 
mankind, and advertiseth him of things past. It toucheth 
not the matter herein to discover whether this prince, by 
reason of his over great melancholy, had received those 
impressions, divining that which never any but himself 
had before declared. * * * " l 

It was evidently Hamlet who, in this narrative, struck 
and allured the imagination of Shakspeare. This young 
prince, mad from calculation, and perhaps slightly mad 
by nature ; cunning and melancholy ; burning to avenge 
the death of his father, and skilful in defending his own 
life ; adored by the young girl sent to work his ruin \ 
an object of dread, and yet of tenderness, to his guilty 
mother; and, until the moment of throwing off the 
mask, hidden and incomprehensible to both ; — this 
personage, full of passion, danger, and mystery, well 
versed in the occult sciences, and whom, perhaps, " by 
reason of his over great melancholy, the wicked spirit 

* See, " The Hystorie of Hamblet," in Payne Collier's " Shakspeare's 
Library," vol. i. London, 1843. 



HAMLET. 207 

enabled to divine that which never any but himself had 
before declared;" what an admirable character was this 
for Shakspeare, that curious and deep-searching observer 
of the secret agitations of the human soul and destiny ! 
Had he done nothing more than depict, with the bold 
outline and brilliant colouring of his pencil, this character 
and situation as delineated in the chronicle, he would 
assuredly have produced a master-piece. 

But Shakspeare did much more than this : under 
his treatment, Hamlet's madness becomes something 
altogether different from the obstinate premeditation 
or melancholy enthusiasm of a young prince of . the 
Middle Ages, placed in a dangerous position, and 
engaged in a dark design : it is a grave moral condition, 
a great malady of soul which, at certain epochs and in 
certain states of society and of manners, diffuses itself 
among mankind, frequently attacks the most highly- 
gifted and the noblest of our species, and afflicts them 
with a disturbance of mind which sometimes borders very 
closely upon madness. The world is full of evil, and of 
all kinds of evil. What sufferings, crimes, and fatal, 
although innocent, errors ! "What general and private 
iniquities, both strikingly apparent and utterly unknown ! 
What merits, either stifled or neglected, become lost to 
the public and a burden to their possessors ! What 
falsehood, and coldness, and levity, and ingratitude, and 
forgetfulness, abound in the relations and feelings of 
men ! Life is so short, and vet so agitated, — sometimes 



208 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

so burdensome, and sometimes so empty ! The future 
is so obscure ! so much darkness at the end of so many 
trials ! In reference to those who only see this phase of 
the world and of human destiny, it is easy to understand 
why their mind becomes disturbed, why their heart fails 
them, and why a misanthropic melancholy becomes an 
habitual feeling, which plunges them by turns into 
irritation or doubt, — into ironical contempt or utter 
prostration. 

This was, assuredly, not the disease of the times in 
which the chronicle represents Hamlet to have lived, 
nor indeed of the age in which Shakspeare himself 
flourished. The Middle Ages and the sixteenth century 
were epochs too active and too rude to give ready 
admittance to these bitter contemplations and unhealthy 
developments of human sensibility. They belong much 
rather to times of luxurious life, and of moral excitement 
at once keen and leisurely, when souls are roused from 
their repose, and deprived of every strong and obligatory 
occupation. It is then that arise these meditative 
discontents, these partial and irritated impressions, this 
entire forgetfulness of all that is good, this passionate 
susceptibility to all that is evil in the condition of man, 
and all this pedantic wrath of man against the laws and 
order of the universe. 

That painful uneasiness and profound disturbance 
which are introduced into the soul by so gloomy and 
false an appreciation of things in general, and of man 



HAMLET. 209 

himself, — which he never met with in his own time, or 
in those times with the history of which he was 
acquainted, — Shakspeare divined, and constructed from 
them the figure and character of Hamlet. Read once 
again the four great monologues in which the Prince of 
Denmark abandons himself to the reflective expression 
of his inmost feelings ; gather together from the whole 
play the passages in which he casually gives them utter- 
ance ; seek out and sum up that which is manifest and that 
which is hidden in all that he thinks and says ; and you 
will everywhere recognise the presence of the moral 
malady which I have just described. Therein truly 
resides, much more than in his personal griefs and 
perils, the source of Hamlet's melancholy; in this 
consists his fixed idea and his madness. 

And with the admirable good sense of genius, in 
order to render the exhibition of so sombre a disease not 
only endurable, but attractive, Shakspeare has endowed 
the sufferer himself with the gentlest and most alluring 
qualities. He has made Hamlet handsome, popular, 
generous, affectionate, and even tender. He was 
desirous that the instinctive character of his hero should 
in some sort redeem human nature from the distrust 
and anathemas with which it was laden by his 
philosophic melancholy. 

But, at the same time, guided by that instinct of 
harmony which never deserts the true poet, Shakspeare 
has diffused over the whole drama the same gloomy 



210 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

colour which opens the scene ; the spectre of the 
assassinated monarch gives its impress to the movement 
of the drama from its very outset, and leads it onward 
to its termination, and when that term arrives, death 
reigns once more ; all die, the innocent as well as the 
guilty, the young girl as well as the prince, and she 
more mad than he is ; all depart to join the spectre 
who had left his tomb only that he might drag them all 
with him on his return, The whole circumstance is as 
mournful as Hamlet's thoughts. None are left upon 
the stage but the Norwegian strangers, who then appear 
for the first time, and who have previously taken no 
part in the action. 

After this great moral painting, comes the second of 
Shakspeare's superior beauties, dramatic effect. This 
is nowhere more complete and more striking than in 
" Hamlet," for the two conditions of great dramatic 
effect are found in it, unity in variety — one sole, 
constant, and dominant impression ; and this impression 
varied according to the character, the turn of mind, and 
the condition, of the different personages in whom it is 
developed. Death hovers over the whole drama ; the 
spectre of the murdered king represents and personifies 
it ; he is always there, sometimes present himself, 
sometimes present to the thoughts, and in the language, 
of the other personages. Whether great or small, 
innocent or guilty, interested or indifferent to his history, 
they are all constantly concerned about him ; some with 



HAMLET. 211 

remorse, others with affection and grief, others again 
merely with curiosity, and some even without curiosity, 
and simply by chance : for example, that rude grave- 
digger, who says that he entered on his trade on the 
day on which the late king had gained a great victory 
over his neighbour, the King of Norway, and who, 
while digging the grave of the beautiful Ophelia, the mad 
mistress of the madman Hamlet, turns up the skull of 
poor Yorick, the jester of the deceased monarch — the 
skull of the jester of that spectre, who issues at every 
moment from his tomb to alarm the living and enforce 
the punishment of his assassin. All these personages, 
in the midst of all these circumstances, are brought 
forward, withdrawn, and introduced again by turns, 
each with his own peculiar physiognomy, language, 
and impression ; and all ceaselessly concur to maintain, 
diffuse, and strengthen the sole, general impression of 
death — of death, just or unjust, natural or violent, 
forgotten or lamented, but always present — which is the 
supreme law, and should be the permanent thought 
of all men. 

On the stage, before a large and mingled crowd of 
spectators, the effect of this drama, at once so gloomy 
and so animated, is irresistible ; the soul is stirred to its 
lowest depths, at the same time that the imagination 
and senses are occupied and carried away by a con- 
tinuous and rapid external movement. Herein is 
displayed the twofold genius of Shakspeare, equally 

p2 



212 SHAKSPE ARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

inexhaustible as a philosopher and as a poet ; by turns 
a moralist and a machinist; as skilful in filling the stage 
with uproarious movement, as in penetrating and bring- 
ing to light the inmost secrets of the human heart. 
Subjected to the immediate action of such a power, men 
en masse require nothing beyond that which it gives 
them ; it holds them under its dominion, and carries by 
assault their sympathy and their admiration. Fastidious 
and delicate minds, which judge almost at the same 
moment that they feel, and carry the necessity for per- 
fection even into their liveliest pleasures, have an immense 
taste and admiration for Shakspeare also ; but they are 
disagreeably disturbed in their admiration and enjoyment, 
sometimes by the accumulation and confusion of useless 
personages and interests, sometimes by long and subtle 
developments of a reflection or an idea which it would 
be proper for the personage to indicate en passant, but 
in which the poet takes pleasure, and so pauses for his 
own gratification ; but more frequently still by that 
fantastic mixture of coarseness and refinement of lan- 
guage, which sometimes imparts factitious and pedantic 
forms even to the truest feelings, and a barbarous 
physiognomy to the noblest inspirations of philosophy or 
poetry. These defects abound in " Hamlet." I will 
neither give myself the painful satisfaction of proving this 
assertion, nor will I omit to state it. In point of genius, 
Shakspeare has perhaps no rivals ; but in the high and 
pure regions of art, he cannot be taken as a model. 



KING LEAR 

(1605.) 

In the year of the world 3105, say the chronicles, "at 
what time Joas ruled in Judah, Leir the son of Baldud 
was admitted ruler over the Britons." He was a wise 
and powerful prince, who maintained his country and 
subjects in a state of great prosperity, and founded the 
town of Caerleir, now called Leicester. He had three 
daughters, Gonerilla, Regan, and Cordelia, " which 
daughters he greatly loved, but specially Cordelia, the 
youngest, far above the two elder." Having attained a 
great age, and becoming enfeebled both in body and 
mind, " he thought to understand the affections of his 
daughters towards him, and prefer her whom he best 
loved to the succession over the kingdom. Whereupon 
he first asked Gonerilla, the eldest, how well she loved 
him : who, calling her gods to record, protested that she 
loved him more than her own life, which by right and 
reason should be most dear to her. With which answer 
the father, being well pleased, turned to the second, and 
demanded of her how well she loved him ■ who answered 



214 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

(confirming her sayings with great oaths), that she loved 
him more than tongue could express, and far above all 
other creatures of the world." When he put the same 
question to Cordelia, she answered : " Knowing the 
great love and fatherly zeal that you have always borne 
towards me (for the which I may not answer you other- 
wise than I think, and as my conscience leadeth me), I 
protest unto you that I have loved you ever, and will 
continually (while I live) love you as my natural father. 
And if you would more understand of the love that I 
bear you, ascertain yourself, that so much as you have, so 
much you are worth, and so much I love you, and 
no more." Her father, displeased with this answer, 
married his two eldest daughters, one to Henninus, 
Duke of Cornwall, and the other to Maglanus, Duke 
of Albany, "betwixt whom he willed and ordained that 
his land should be divided after his death, and the 
one-half thereof immediately should be assigned to them 
in hand ; but for the third daughter, Cordelia, he 
reserved nothing . ' ' 

It happened, however, that Aganippus, one of the 
twelve kings who then governed Gaul, heard of the 
beauty and merit of this princess, and desired to have 
her in marriage. He was told that she had no dowry, 
as everything had been bestowed on her two sisters ; 
but Aganippus persisted in his request, obtained 
Cordelia's hand, and carried her in triumph to his 
kingdom. 



KING LEAR. 215 

Meanwhile Leir's two sons-in-law, beginning to think 
he was reigning too long, seized violently upon the land 
which he had reserved to himself, and assigned him 
only a sufficient income to live and maintain his rank. 
Even this allowance was gradually diminished ; but 
Avhat caused Leir most pain was the extreme unkind- 
ness of his daughters, who " seemed to think that all 
was too much which their father had, the same being 
never so little ; insomuch that, going from the one to 
the other, he was brought to that misery that scarcely 
they would allow him one servant to wait upon him." 
The old king in despair fled from the country, and took 
refuge in Gaul, where Cordelia and her husband 
received him with great honours ; and raised an army 
and equipped a fleet to restore him to his possessions, 
the succession of which he promised to bequeath to 
Cordelia, who accompanied her father and husband on 
this expedition. The two dukes having been slain, and 
their armies defeated, in a battle fought with Aganippus, 
Leir re-ascended his throne, and died two years after- 
wards, forty years after his first accession. Cordelia 
succeeded him, and reigned five years ; but in the mean- 
while, her husband having died, her nephews, Margan 
and Cunedag, rebelled against her, conquered her, and 
cast her into prison, where, " being a woman of a manly 
courage, and despairing to recover liberty," she 
committed suicide. 1 

1 Holintshed's Chronicle, History of England, book ii., chap. 5, 6. 



216 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

This story is borrowed by Holinshed from Geoffrey 
of Monmouth, who probably constructed the history of 
Leir, from an anecdote of Ina, king of the Saxons, 
and the answer of the "youngest and wisest of the 
daughters " of that king, who, under circumstances 
similar to those in which Cordelia was placed, gave a 
similar answer to her father, that, although she loved, 
honoured, and revered him in the highest degree that 
nature and filial duty could require, yet she thought it 
might one day happen that she would more ardently 
love her husband, with whom, by the command of God, 
she was to constitute one flesh, and for whom she 
might leave father and mother. It does not appear that 
Ina disapproved of the "wise speech" of his daughter; 
and the sequel of Cordelia's history is probably a 
development added by the imagination of the chron- 
iclers to this primary fact. However this may be, the 
anger and misfortunes of King Lear had, before Shak- 
speare's time, found a place in several poems, as well as 
formed the subject of one drama and several ballads. 
In one of these ballads, mentioned by Johnson, under 
the title of " A lamentable song of the death of King 
Leir and his three daughters," Lear, as in the tragedy, 
goes mad, and Cordelia, having been killed in the battle 
gained by the troops of the King of France, her father 
dies of grief upon her body, and her sisters are 
condemned to death by the judgment of the " lords and 
nobles of the kingdom." Whether the ballad preceded 



KING LEAR. 217 

Shakspeare' s tragedy or not, it is very probable that the 
author of the ballad and the dramatic poet derived 
their facts from the same source, and that it was not 
without some authority that Shakspeare in his denouement 
departed from the chronicles, which give the victory to 
Cordelia. This denouement was changed by Tate, and 
Cordelia restored to her rights. The play remained on 
the stage in this second form, to the great satisfaction of 
Johnson, and, says Mr. Steevens, of " the upper gallery." 
Addison, however, pronounced against this change. 

As to the episode of the Earl of Gloster, Shakspeare 
has imitated it from the adventure of a king of Paphla- 
gonia, related in Sidney's " Arcadia • " only, in the 
original narrative, the bastard himself deprives his father 
of sight, and reduces him to a condition similar to 
that of Lear. Leonatus, the legitimate son, who, having 
been condemned to death, had been obliged to seek 
service in a foreign army, on learning the misfortunes 
of his father, leaves all at the moment when his merits 
were about to gain him a high rank, in order to 
hasten, at the risk of his life, to share and succour 
the misery of the old king. The latter, restored to his 
throne by the aid of his friends, dies of joy on crowning 
his son Leonatus ; and the bastard Plexirtus, by a 
feigned repentance, succeeds in disarming the anger of 
his brother. 

It is evident that the situation of King Lear and of 
the King of Paphlagonia, both persecuted by the children 



218 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

whom they preferred, and succoured by the one whom 
they rejected, struck Shakspeare as fitted to enter into 
the same subject, because they belonged to the same idea. 
Those who have blamed him for having thus injured the 
simplicity of his action, have given then opinion according to 
their own system, without taking the trouble to examine 
that of the author whom they criticised. Starting even 
from the rules which they are desirous to impose, we 
might answer that the love of the two women for Edmund, 
which serves to effect their punishment, and the inter- 
vention of Edgar at this part of the denouement, are 
sufficient to acquit the play of the charge of duplicity of 
action ; for, provided that all the threads at last unite in 
one knot which it is easy to seize, the simplicity of 
the progress of an action depends much less upon the 
number of the interests and personages concerned in it, 
than upon the natural and clearly visible play of the 
springs which set it in motion. But further, we must 
never forget, that unity, in Shakspeare' s view, consists in 
one dominant idea, which, reproducing itself under 
various forms, incessantly produces, continues, and 
redoubles the same impression. Thus as, in " Macbeth," 
the poet displays man in conflict with the passions of 
crime, so in " King Lear," he depicts him in conflict 
with misfortune, the action of which is modified accord- 
ing to the different characters of the individuals who 
experience it. The first spectacle which he brings under 
our notice is the misfortune of virtue, or of persecuted 



KING LEAR. 219 

innocence, as exemplified in Cordelia, Kent, and Edgar. 
Then comes the misfortune of those who, by their passion 
or blindness, have rendered themselves the tools of 
injustice, namely, Lear and Gloster; and upon these 
the effort of compassion is directed. As for the wicked 
personages, we do not witness their sufferings ; the sight 
of their misfortune would be disturbed by the remem- 
brance of their criminality ; they can have no punish- 
ment but death. 

Of the five personages subjected to the action of 
misfortune, Cordelia, a heavenly figure, hovers almost 
invisible and half-veiled over the composition, which she 
fills with her presence, although she is almost always 
absent from it. She suffers, but never complains, never 
defends herself : she acts, but her action is manifested 
only by its results ; serene regarding her own fate, 
reserved and restrained even in her most legitimate 
feelings, she passes and disappears like a denizen of a 
better world, who has traversed this world of ours with- 
out experiencing any mere earthly emotion. 

Kent and Edgar each have a very decided physiognomy ; 
the first of them is, like Cordelia, a victim to his duty ; 
the second interests us at first only by his innocence. 
Having entered upon misfortune at the same time, so to 
speak, that he entered into life, and equally new to both 
conditions, Edgar gradually develops his faculties, learns 
their character at once, and discovers within himself, as 
need requires, the qualities with which he is gifted ; in 



220 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

proportion as he advances, his duties, and his difficulties, 
and his importance increase • he grows up and becomes a 
man, but at the same time he learns how costly is this 
growth ; and he finally discovers, when bearing it with 
nobleness and courage, the whole weight of that burden 
which he had hitherto borne almost with gaiety. Kent, on 
the contrary, a wise and firm old man, has known all, and 
foreseen all, from the very outset ; as soon as he enters 
upon action, his march is determined, and his object 
defined. He is not, like Edgar, urged by necessity, or 
met by chance ; his will determines his conduct ; nothing 
can change or disturb it; and the aspect of the misfortune 
to which he devotes himself, scarcely wrings from him 
an exclamation of grief or pain. 

Lear and Gloster, in an analogous situation, receive 
from it an impression which corresponds to their different 
characters. Lear, impetuous and irritable, spoilt by 
power and by the habit and need of admiration, rebels 
both against his position and against his own conviction ; 
he cannot believe in what he knows ; his reason offers 
no resistance ; and he becomes mad. Gloster, naturally 
weak, yields to his misery, and is equally incapable of 
resistance to his joy ; he dies on recognising Edgar. If 
Cordelia were alive, Lear would still find strength to 
live ; but he breaks down by the effort of his grief. 

Amidst all this confusion of incidents and coarseness 
of manners, interest and pathos have never perhaps 
been carried further than in this tragedy. The time in 



KING LEAR. 221 

which Shakspeare laid his action seems to have emanci- 
pated him from all conventional forms ; and jnst as he 
felt no difficulty in placing a King of France, a Duke of 
Albany, and a Duke of Cornwall, eight hundred years 
before the Christian era, so he felt no necessity for 
connecting the language and the characters of his drama 
with any determinate period. The only trace of inten- 
tion which can be remarked in the general colour of the 
style of the drama, is the vagueness and uncertainty of 
the grammatical constructions, which seem to belong to 
a language still quite in its infancy ; at the same time, 
a considerable number of expressions which bear a close 
resemblance to the French language, indicate an epoch, 
if not correspondent with that in which King Lear is 
supposed to have lived, at least far anterior to that at 
which Shakspeare wrote. 



MACBETH. 

(1606.) 



In the year 1034, Duncan succeeded his grandfather, 
Malcolm, on the throne of Scotland. He held his right 
of his mother, Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Malcolm ; 
the younger daughter, Doada, was the mother of 
Macbeth, who was thus cousin-german to Duncan. The 
father of Macbeth was Finleg, thane of Glamis, men- 
tioned under the name of Sinel in the tragedy, and 
in the chronicle of Holinshed, on the authority of 
Hector Boetius, from whom the narrative of the events 
concerning Duncan and Macbeth is borrowed. As 
Shakspeare has followed Holinshed's chronicle with the 
utmost exactness, it becomes necessary to give the facts 
as therein related ; and they are, moreover, in themselves 
replete with interest. 

Macbeth had rendered himself celebrated by his 
bravery, and "if he had not been somewhat cruel of 
nature," says the chronicle, " he might have been 
thought most worthy of the government of a realm." 
Duncan, on the other hand, was an unwarlike prince, 



MACBETH. 223 

and carried his gentleness and kindness to excess ; so 
that if it had been possible to fuse the characters of the 
two cousins together, and to temper the one by the 
other, the people would have had, says the chronicle, " an 
excellent captain, and a worthy king." 

After some years of peaceful dominion, the weakness 
of Duncan having encouraged malefactors, Banquo, the 
thane of Lochaber, " as he gathered the finances due to 
the king," found himself compelled to punish, "somewhat 
sharply," several notorious offenders, which occasioned 
a revolt. Banquo was robbed of all the money he had 
collected, and "had much ado to get away with life, after 
he had received sundry grievous wounds." As soon as 
he had recovered of his hurts, he proceeded to Court to 
lay his complaints before Duncan, and at last persuaded 
the King to summon the rebels to appear before him ; 
but they slew the sergeant-at-arms who had been sent 
with the royal mandate, and prepared for defence, at the 
instigation of Macdowald, one of their most important 
chieftains, who, collecting his clansmen and friends 
around him, represented Duncan to them as a " faint- 
hearted milksop, more meet to govern a set of idle 
monks in some cloister, than to have the rule of such 
valiant and hardy men of war as the Scots were." The 
revolt spread particularly throughout the Western Isles, 
from whence a host of warriors came to join Mac- 
dowald at Lochaber ; and the hope of plunder attracted 
from Ireland a large number of Kernes and Gallo- 



224 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

glasses, 1 ready to follow Macdowald, whithersoever it 
should please him to lead them. By means of these 
reinforcements, Macdowald defeated the troops which 
the King had sent to oppose him, took prisoner their 
leader, Malcolm, and beheaded him after the battle. 

Duncan, in consternation at this news, assembled his 
council, at which Macbeth, after having blamed the 
King severely for his lenity and slackness in punishing 
the offenders, which had given them time to collect an 
army, offered to undertake the conduct of the war, in 
concert with Banquo. His offer was gladly accepted, 
and the mere report of his approach with fresh troops 
struck such terror into the rebels, that a great number 
of them secretly deserted ; and Macdowald, having tried 
to make head against Macbeth with the remainder, was 
utterly routed, and forced to fly to a castle in which he 
had placed his wife and children; but, despairing • of 
being able to hold out, and fearing the cruelties of his 
opponents, he killed himself, after having first put his 
wife and children to death. Macbeth entered without 
obstacle into the castle, the gates of which had been left 
open. He found only the body of Macdowald in the 
midst of his murdered family; and the barbarism of 
that rude age was revolted by the fact that, unmoved by 
this tragic spectacle, Macbeth cut off Macdowald' s head, 
and sent it to the King, and hanged the body upon a 

1 The Kernes were a species of light infantry, and the Galloglasses heavy - 
armed foot-soldiers. 



MACBETH. 225 

gallows. He made the inhabitants of the isles purchase 
the pardon of their revolt at a very high price, which did 
not, however, prevent him from putting to execution all 
those whom he could find in Lochaber. The inhabit- 
ants exclaimed loudly against this violation of his pledge, 
and the reproaches which they heaped upon him irri- 
tated Macbeth to such a degree, that he was on the 
point of crossing over to the isles with an army to take 
vengeance upon them ; but he was dissuaded from this 
project by the counsels of his friends, and more particu- 
larly by the presents with which the islanders a second 
time purchased their pardon. 

A short time afterwards, Sweno, King of Norway, 
having made a descent upon Scotland, Duncan, to resist 
him, placed himself at the head of the largest portion of 
his army, and entrusted the rest to the command of 
Macbeth and Banquo. Duncan was defeated and put 
to flight ; and he took refuge in the castle of Perth, in 
which he was besieged by Sweno. Duncan, having 
secretly informed Macbeth of his intentions, feigned a 
desire to surrender, and protracted the negotiation, until 
at last, having learned that Macbeth had collected a 
sufficient force, he appointed a day for giving up the 
fortress ; and, meanwhile, he offered to send the Nor- 
wegians a supply of provisions, which they accepted all 
the more eagerly because they had suffered greatly from 
famine for several days. The bread and ale with which 
he furnished them had been adulterated with the juice 



226 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

of an extremely narcotic berry, so that, having eaten and 
drank greedily, they fell into " a fast dead sleep, that in 
manner it was impossible to awake them." Then 
Duncan sent word to Macbeth, who arriving in all haste, 
and entering without opposition into the camp, massa- 
cred almost all the Norwegians, most of whom never 
stirred, while the others were rendered so dizzy by the 
effects of the narcotic, that they conld make no defence. 
A large number of sailors from the Norwegian fleet, who 
had come to share in the abundance which prevailed in 
the camp, shared also in the fate of their fellow-country- 
men ; and Sweno, who escaped with ten others from 
this butchery, could scarcely find enough mariners to 
man the ship in which he fled to Norway. Those 
vessels which he left behind were, three days afterwards, 
so tossed by an east wind, " that, beating and rushing 
one against another, they sank there," at a place called 
Drownelow Sands, where they He " even unto these 
days (1574), to the great danger of. other such ships as 
come on that coast ; for, being covered with the flood 
when the tide cometh, at the ebbing again of the same, 
some parts of them appear above water." 

This disaster caused such consternation in Norway, 
that, for many years afterwards, no knights were made 
until they had sworn to avenge their countrymen who 
had thus been slaughtered in Scotland. Duncan, in 
celebration of his deliverance, ordered solemn proces- 
sions to be made throughout the realm ; but while these 



MACBETH. 227 

thanksgivings were in progress, he was informed of the 
disembarkation of an army of Danes, under the com- 
mand of Canute, King of England, who had come to 
avenge the defeat of his brother, Sweno. Macbeth and 
Banquo hastened to meet them, defeated them in a 
pitched battle, and forced them to re-embark, and to pay 
a considerable sum for permission to bury their dead at 
St. Colm's Inch, where, says the chronicle, " many old 
sepulchres are yet to be seen, graven with the arms of 
the Danes." 

Such are the exploits of Macbeth and Banquo, of 
which Shakspeare, following Holinshed, has made use 
in his tragedy. A short time afterwards, Macbeth and 
Banquo were travelling to Forres, where the King then 
lay, " and went sporting by the way together, without 
other company save only themselves," when they were 
suddenly accosted by three women " in strange and wild 
apparel, resembling creatures of the elder world," who 
saluted Macbeth precisely as it is related in the tragedy. 
Upon this, Banquo said : " What manner of women are 
you, that seem so little favourable unto me, whereas, to 
my fellow here, besides high offices, ye assign also the 
kingdom, appointing forth nothing for me at all?" 
"Yes," saith the first of them, "we promise greater 
benefits unto thee than unto him, for he shall reign, 
indeed, but with an unlucky end ; neither shall he leave 
any issue behind him to succeed in his place ; whereas, 
contrarily, thou indeed shalt not reign at all, but of 

Q 2 



228 SHAKSPEAEE'S TRAGEDIES. 

thee those shall be born who shall govern the Scottish 
kingdoms by long order of continual descent." Here- 
with, the women immediately disappeared. Soon after- 
wards, the thane of Cawdor having been put to death 
for treason, his title was conferred upon Macbeth, who 
now began, as well as Banquo, to place great faith in 
the predictions of the witches, and to devise means for 
obtaining the crown. 

He had a good chance of succeeding legitimately to 
the throne, for Duncan's sons were not yet of age to 
reign, and the law of Scotland ordained that, if the King 
died before his sons or direct descendants were old 
enough to undertake the management of affairs, the 
nearest relative of the deceased king should be elected 
in their stead. But Duncan having appointed his son 
Malcolm, while still under age, Prince of Cumberland 
and successor to the throne, Macbeth, who saw his 
hopes destroyed by this proceeding, thought himself 
entitled to take revenge for the injustice he had experi- 
enced. To this, moreover, he was incessantly stimulated 
by his wife, Guach, who, burning with desire to bear the 
name of Queen, and being, says Boetius, " like all women, 
impatient of delay," continually reproached him with his 
want of courage. Macbeth, therefore, having assembled a 
large number of his friends at Inverness, or, as some say, 
at Botgosuane, communicated to them his design, killed 
Duncan, and repaired with his party to Scone, where 
he obtained possession of the crown without difficulty. 



MACBETH: 229 

Holinshed's chronicle relates the minder of Duncan 
without any detail. The incidents which Shakspeare 
has interwoven into his drama, are taken from another 
part of the same chronicle concerning the murder of 
King Duff, who had been assassinated, more than sixty 
years before, by a Scottish lord, named Donwald. The 
following are the circumstances of this murder, as related 
in the chronicle. 

Duff had shown himself, from the commencement of 

his reign, very anxious to protect the people against 

malefactors, and " idle persons who sought to live only 

upon other men's goods." He put several to death, 

and compelled others to withdraw to Ireland, or else to 

learn u some manual occupation wherewith to get their 

living." Although, as it would appear, these fellows 

were connected onlv in a very remote degree with the 

high nobility of Scotland, the nobles, says the chronicle, 

"were much offended with this extreme rigour, account- 
ed ' 

ins: it a great dishonour for such as were descended of 
noble parentage, to be constrained to get then living 
with the labour of then hands, which only appertained 
to ploughmen, and such others of the base degree as 
were born to travail for the maintenance of the nobility, 
and to serve at their commandment." The King was 
consequently regarded by them as an enemy of the 
nobles, and unworthy to govern them, as he was, they 
said, devoted solely to the interests of the people and 
clergy, who at that time made common cause against 



230 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

the oppression of the great lords. The discontent 
increased daily, and several rebellions arose, in one of 
which some young gentlemen engaged, who were rela- 
tives of Donwald, the King's lieutenant of the castle of 
Torres. These young men were taken prisoners, and 
Donwald, who until then had faithfully and usefully 
served the King, hoped to obtain their pardon ; but not 
succeeding in his attempt, he was filled with resentment. 
His wife, who was irritated against the King from a 
similar cause, spared no efforts to increase his anger, and 
reminded him how easy it would be to take his revenge 
when Duff came, as frequently happened, to reside at 
Forres without any other guard than the garrison of the 
castle, which was entirely devoted to them ; and " she 
showed him the means whereby he might soonest 
accomplish it/' 

Duff came to Forres a short time afterwards, and, 
on the evening before his departure, when he had gone 
to bed, after spending a longer time than usual at 
prayers in his oratory, Donwalo and his wife sat down 
to table with the two chamberlains, whose " reare-supper 
or collation 3 ' they had carefully prepared, and feasted 
them so well, that they fell into a lethargic sleep. Then 
Donwald, " though he abhorred the act greatly in heart," 
at the instigation of his wife, summoned four of his 
servants who were aware of his plot, and whom he had 
gained over by presents. These entered the King's 
chamber, killed him, carried his body out of the castle 



MACBETH. 231 

by a postern-gate, and, placing it on a horse which they 
had provided for the purpose, conveyed it to a place 
about two miles distant from the castle. Having got 
some labourers to help them to turn the course of a little 
river that ran through the fields, they dug a deep hole in 
the channel, and buried the body in it, " ramming it up 
with stones and gravel so closely, that, setting the water 
in the right course again, no man could perceive that 
anything had been newly digged there. This they did 
by order of Donwald, that the body should not be found, 
and by bleeding, when Donwald was present, declare 
him to be guilty of the murder." Donwald, in the 
meanwhile, was careful to be one of those who kept 
guard, and did not leave his post during the whole 
night. The subsequent circumstances, relative to the 
murder of the two chamberlains, are exactly as Shakspeare 
has represented them in "Macbeth ;" and the same may 
be said of the prodigies which he relates, and which took 
place at the death of Duff. The sun did not appear for 
six months, until at last, the murderers having been 
discovered and executed, it shone forth again upon the 
earth, and the fields became covered with flowers, " clean 
contrary to the time and season of the year." 

To return to Macbeth. The first ten years of his 
reign were marked by a wise, equitable, and vigorous 
government. Several of his laws have been preserved, 
of which the following are specimens : 

" He that attendeth any man to the church, market, or 



232 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

to any other public assembly, as a retainer, shall suffer 
death, except he have living at his hands, on whom he so 
attendeth." The punishment of death was also decreed 
against all who became sworn retainers of any other 
person than the King. 

" All manner of lords and great barons shall not con- 
tract matrimony with other, under pain of death, specially 
if their lands and rooms be near together." 

" All armour and weapon borne to other effect than in 
defence of the King and realm in time of wars, shall be 
confiscated to the King's use, with all other moveable 
goods of the party that herein offendeth." It was also 
enacted that " a horse kept by any of the commons 
or husbandmen to any other use than for tillage and 
labouring of the earth, shall be forfeited to the King by 
escheat." 

" Such as be appointed governors, or (as I may call 
them) captains, that buy within those limits where their 
charges lie, any lands or possessions, shall lose both lands 
and possessions, and the money which they have paid 
for the same. And if any of the said captains or 
governors marry their sons or daughters unto any manner 
of person that dwelleth within the bounds of their rooms, 
they shall lose their office; neither shall it be lawful 
for any of their sons or copartners to occupy the same 
office." 

" No man shall sit as judge in any temporal Court 
without the King's commission authorising him thereto. 



MACBETH. 233 

All conventions, offices, and acts of justice shall pass in 
the King's name." 

Other laws are intended to assure the immunity 
of the clergy and the authority of the censures of the 
Church, to regulate the duties of knighthood, the suc- 
cession of property, and so forth. Several of these laws, 
some of which are rather singular, for the time, were 
passed from motives of order and regularity ; others 
were destined to maintain civil independence against the 
oppressive power of the officers of the Crown ; but most 
of them are evidently intended to diminish the power of 
the nobles, and to concentrate all authority in the hands 
of the King. All are mentioned by the historians of the 
period as wise and beneficent laws ; and if Macbeth had 
obtained the throne by legitimate means, and had con- 
tinued in the ways of justice as he began, he might, says 
Holinshed, " have been numbered amongst the most 
noble princes that anywhere had reigned." 

" But this," continues our chronicle, " was but a 
counterfeit zeal of equity showed by him, against his 
natural inclination." Macbeth appeared at length 
in his true colours • and the same feeling of his position 
which had led him to seek public favour by justice, 
changed justice into cruelty ; " for the prick of con- 
science caused him ever to fear lest he should be served 
of the same cup as he had ministered to his predecessor." 
Now begins the Macbeth of the tragedy. The murder 
of Banquo, executed in the same manner and for the 



234 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

same reasons as those which Shakspeare ascribes to him, 
was followed by a great number of other crimes, so that 
"at length he found such sweetness by putting his 
nobles thus to death, that his earnest thirst after blood 
in this behalf might in no wise be satisfied." Certain 
wizards, in whom he placed great trust, had warned him 
to beware of Macduff, whose power, moreover, gave him 
great umbrage, and he only sought a pretext for giving 
vent to his hatred of him. Macduff, informed of his 
danger, passed over into England to invite Malcolm, 
who had taken refuge in that country, to return to claim 
his rights. Macbeth became acquainted with this plot, 
" for kings," says the chronicle, " have sharp sight like 
unto lynx, and long ears like unto Midas ;" and Macbeth 
maintained spies in the houses of all the nobles of Ins 
realm. The flight of Macduff, the massacre of all his 
family, and his conversation with Malcolm, are all facts 
taken from the chronicle. Malcolm at first met Macduff's 
entreaties with objections based upon his own incon- 
tinence, and Macduff replied as in Shakspeare, with this 
addition only: "Make thyself Kmg, and I shall convey 
the matter so wisely, that thou shalt be so satisfied at 
thy pleasure in such secret wise, that no man shall be 
aware thereof." The remainder of the scene is faithfully 
imitated by the poet ; and all that concerns the death of 
Macbeth, the predictions that had been made to him, and 
the manner in which they were at once eluded and 
accomplished, is taken almost word for word from the 



MACBETH. 235 

chronicle, in which we see at last how, " by illusion of 
the devil, he defamed, with most terrible cruelty, his 
reign, which in the beginning was very profitable to the 
commonwealth/' Macbeth had assassinated Duncan in 
the year 1040, and he was himself killed in 1057, after 
a reign of seventeen years. 1 

Such is a general view of the facts to which Shak- 
speare undertook to impart a soul and life. He places 
himself simply in the midst of the events and person- 
ages, and setting all these inanimate things in motion 
with a breath, he enables us to witness the spectacle of 
their existence. Par from adding anything to the inci- 
dents furnished him by the narrative from which he has 
borrowed his subject, he omits many things ; he is 
especially careful to lop off everything that might injure 
the simplicity of his progress, and embarrass the action 
of his personages ; and he suppresses everything that 
might prevent him from fathoming them with a single 
glance, and portraying them with a few bold touches. 
Macbeth, with all the crimes and great qualities ascribed 
to him by his history, would be too complicated a 
being ; it would be necessary for him to possess at once 
too much ambition and too much virtue for one of his 



i Holinshed's Chronicle, "History of Scotland," vol. L, pp. 168—176. The 
story of the murder of King Duff is contained in pp. 150, 151. It was probably 
of the facts furnished by Hector Boetius to this chronicle that Buchanan, 
when relating in a much more summary manner the history of Macbeth, said : 
"Multa hie fabulose quidam nostrorum affingunt; sed quia theatris aut 
Milesiis fabulis sunt aptiora quam historise, ea omitto." — Rerum. Scot. Hist., 
lib. vii. 



236 SHAKSPE ARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

dispositions to maintain itself for any time in presence 
of the other, and too cumbrous machinery would be 
required to make the balance finally incline to one or 
the other side. Shakspeare's Macbeth is. brilliant only 
by his warlike virtues, and especially by his personal 
bravery \ he has only the qualities and the defects of a 
barbarian ; brave, but not a stranger to the fear of peril 
when he believes in its proximity • cruel and sensitive 
by fits and starts ; perfidious through his inconstancy ; 
always ready to yield to any temptation that presents 
itself, whether it lead to crime or to virtue, — he dis- 
plays, in his ambition as well as in his criminality, that 
character of thoughtlessness and mobility which belongs 
to an almost savage state of civilisation. His passions 
are imperious, but no series of reasonings and projects 
determines and governs them ; they form a lofty tree, 
but one devoid of roots, which the least breeze may 
shake, and the fall of which is a disaster. Hence arises 
his tragic grandeur ; it resides in his destiny more than 
in his character. Macbeth, if placed at a greater dis- 
tance from the expectation of succession to the throne, 
would have remained virtuous ; but his virtue would 
have been restless, for it would have been merely the 
fruit of circumstance. His crime becomes a punish- 
ment to him, because it is circumstance which has 
forced him to commit it : this crime did not proceed 
from the depths of Macbeth' s nature, and yet it clings 
to him, envelopes him, enchains him, racks him in every 



MACBETH. 237 

part, and thus creates for him a troubled and irremis- 
sible destiny, in which the unhappy victim vainly 
writhes, doing nothing that does not plunge him still 
deeper, and with increasing despair, into the career 
which is henceforward prescribed to him by his impla- 
cable persecutor. Macbeth is one of those characters 
marked out in all superstitions to become the prey and 
instrument of the perverse spirit who takes pleasure 
in destroying them, because they have received some 
spark of the divine nature, and who, at the same time, 
meets with but few difficulties in his task, for the 
heavenly light darts but a few fleeting rays into their 
souls, which are obscured by storms at every instant. 

Lady Macbeth is just exactly the wife of such a man, 
the product of the same state of civilisation, and of the 
same habit of passions. She adds to this, moreover, the 
fact that she is a woman without prudence, without 
generality in her views, perceiving at once only a single 
part of a single idea, and giving herself up to it entirely, 
without ever admitting anything that might distract or 
disturb her attention from it. The feelings which 
belong to her sex are not unknown to her ; she loves 
her husband, knows the pleasures of a mother, and 
could not kill Duncan herself, because he resembled 
" her father as he slept •" but she aspires to be Queen, 
and for this cause Duncan must die ; she sees nothing 
in the death of Duncan but the pleasure of being Queen; 
her courage is easy, for she does not perceive anything 



238 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

to make her recoil from the deed. When her passion is 
satisfied and the action committed, then only will the 
other consequences be revealed to her as a novelty of 
which she previously had not the slightest anticipation. 
Those fears, and that necessity for new crimes, which 
her husband had foreseen at the outset, she has never 
thought of. She was quite willing to throw the crime 
upon the two chamberlains, but it was not her idea to 
kill them ; she did not arrange the murder of Banquo, 
or the massacre of Macduff's family ; she did not see so 
far forward ; she had not even divined the effect which 
would be produced upon her by such a sight, when she 
entered the room in which Duncan lay dead. She 
leaves it in agitation, no longer contemning the terrors 
of her husband, but merely urging him not to dwell too 
much upon images, by which we see that she is begin- 
ning to feel herself besieged. The blow is struck, and 
will reveal itself in the admirable and terrible scene of 
her somnambuhsm : there we shall learn what becomes 
of a character apparently so immoveable, when it is 
no longer sustained by the blind fury of passion. 
Macbeth has become hardened in crime, after having 
hesitated to commit it, because he knew its character ; 
but we shall see his wife, succumbing beneath the 
knowledge which she has acquired too late, substitute 
one fixed idea for another, die to deliver herself from its 
influence, and punish, by the madness of despair, the crime 
which she was led to commit by the madness of ambition. 



MACBETH. 239 

The other personages, introduced merely to fill up 
this great picture of the progress and destiny of crime, 
have no other colour than that of the position given 
them by history. The Witches are indeed what they 
should be, and I do not know why it is the custom to 
exclaim with disgust against this portion of the repre- 
sentation of " Macbeth." When we see these vile creatures 
the arbiters of life and death, of all the chances and all 
the interests of humanity, disposing of them in accord- 
ance with the most contemptible caprices of their odious 
nature — to the terror which their power inspires, is 
added the dread occasioned by their unreason, and the 
very absurdity of such a spectacle only augments 
its effect. 

The style of " Macbeth " is remarkable in its wild 
energy for a refinement which we may indeed blame, but 
which it would be wrong to consider as contrary to 
truth as it is to naturalness. Refinement of language is 
not incompatible with rudeness of manners and ideas ; 
it seems even to be rather common in times and positions 
in which general ideas are wanting. The mind, which 
cannot remain idle, then attaches itself to the slightest 
verbal connections, takes delight in them, and makes a 
habit of them, which Ave meet with in all analogous 
positions. Nothing can be more far-fetched than the 
spirit of the literature of the Middle Ages ; and what 
we know of the speech of savages, contains many choice 
ideas. Refinement is the characteristic of the wits of 



240 SHAKSPEAKE'S TRAGEDIES. 

the lower classes ; and even the insults of the common 
people are sometimes composed with a qnite singular 
fastidiousness, as if, at those times when anger excites 
their faculties, their mind seized with greater facility 
and abundance upon relations of this kind, the only ones 
which it was capable of attaining. 

It is believed that " Macbeth " was performed in 
1606. The idea of writing a tragedy upon this subject, 
which would necessarily be pleasing to King James, who 
had just ascended the throne of England, was probably 
suggested to Shakspeare by a short poetical dialogue 
which the students of Oxford, in 1605, recited in Latin 
before the King, and in English before the Queen, who 
had accompanied him to that city. The students were 
three in number, and probably spoke in turn; their 
speech turned upon the prediction uttered to Banquo • 
and, in allusion to the triple salutation which Macbeth 
had received, they hailed James King of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland. They also hailed him King of 
Erance, which destroyed, somewhat gratuitously, the 
virtue of the number three. 



JULIUS C^SAR, 

(1607.) 

Among those tragedies of Shakspeare to which public 
opinion has assigned a first rank, "Julius Csesar" is the 
one of which the commentators have spoken most coldly. 
Johnson, the coldest of them all, contents himself with 
saying : " Of this tragedy, many particular passages 
deserve regard, and the contention and reconcilement of 
Brutus and Cassius is universally celebrated ; but I have 
never been strongly agitated in perusing it, and think it 
somewhat cold and unaffecting, compared with some 
other of Shakspeare's plays." 

It is to adopt an entirely false principle of criticism 
to judge Shakspeare by himself, and to compare the 
impressions which he has succeeded in producing, in a 
given style and subject, with those which he calls forth 
in another style and subject ; as if he possessed only a 
special and singular merit, which he was bound • to 
display on every occasion, and which constituted his 
sole title to glory. His vast and true genius must 
be measured on a larger scale ; we must compare 



242 SHAKSPEARFS TRAGEDIES. 

Shakspeare with nature, with the world ; and in every 
particular case, the comparison must be made between 
that portion of the world and of nature which it was his 
intention to represent, and the picture which he has 
drawn of it, Do not expect from the painter of Brutus 
the same impressions and the same effects as from the 
delineator of King Lear, or of Romeo and Juliet. 
Shakspeare penetrates to the inmost recesses of all 
subjects, and can derive from each the impressions 
which naturally flow from it, and the distinct and 
original effects which it ought to produce. 

That, after this, the spectacle of the soul of Brutus 
should be, to Johnson, less touching and dramatic than 
the display of any particular passion, or of any particular 
position in life, is a result of the personal inclinations of 
the critic, and of the turn taken by his ideas and feelings. 
"We cannot find in it a general rule, upon which we may 
found a comparison between works of an absolutely 
different kind. There are minds so constituted that 
Corneille will fill them with more emotions than 
Voltaire, and a mother will feel her nature more agitated 
and disturbed by Merope than by Zaire. The mind of 
Johnson, more strong and upright than it was elevated, 
could understand tolerably well the interests and passions 
which agitate the middle region of life, but he never 
could attain to those lofty eminences in which a truly 
stoical soul can exist without effort or distraction. The 
age in which Johnson lived, moreover, was not an age 



JULIUS CESAR. 243 

of great devoternents \ and altliougli, even at that epoch, 
the political climate of England preserved its literature 
in some degree from that effeminate influence "which 
had enervated our own, it could not entirely escape from 
that general disposition of the national mind, that sort 
of moral materialism, which, granting, as it were, to the 
soul no other life but that which it derives from the 
contact of external objects, did not suppose it possible 
for it to be supplied with other sources of interest than 
the pathetic, properly so called — the individual sorrows 
of life, the anguish of the heart, and the storms of the 
passions. This disposition of the eighteenth century 
was so powerful, that, when introducing the death of 
Caesar upon our stage, Voltaire, who justly boasted that 
he had made a tragedy succeed without the aid of love, 
nevertheless did not think that such a spectacle could 
dispense with the pathetic interest which results from 
the painful conflict of duty and affection. In this great 
struggle of the last efforts of dying liberty against 
budding despotism, he sought out, and gave the first 
place to, an obscure and doubtful fact, but one which was 
adapted to furnish, him with the kind of emotions of 
which he stood in need ; and from the position, real or 
fictitious, of Brutus placed between his father and his 
country, Voltaire has constructed the basis and lifespring 
of his tragedy. 

Shakspeare's drama rests entirely upon the character 
of Brutus ; and he has even been blamed for not having 

R 2 



244 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

entitled his work " Marcus Brutus" instead of " Julius 
Caesar." But if Brutus is the hero of the play, the 
power and death of Caesar form its subject, Caesar alone 
occupies the foreground ; the horror felt for his power, 
and the necessity of deliverance from it, fill the whole 
of the first part of the drama ; the other half is conse- 
crated to the recollection and consequences of his death. 
It is, as Antony says : — 
-I8ri98 kftnmq teomis baa bnnoioTq tcdt .mstoo esmoood 



r^'s spirit, ranging for revenge ;' : 

oi3t8UB teorrr silt To njogn orij (d barnircteoi toyo jjiiid 
and, that his sway may not be lost sight of, it is still his 
spirit which, on the plains of Sardis and of Philippi. 
appears to Brutus as his evil geniuda oilj t onii rri— t on : 

The picture of this great catastrophe, however, finishes 
with the death of Brutus. Shakspeare desired to interest 
us in the event of his drama only as it related to Brutus, 
just as he has presented Brutus to us only in relation to 
the event. The fact which furnishes the subject of the 
tragedy, and the character which accomplishes it, the 
death of Caesar and the character of Brutus, — this is the 
union which constitutes Shakspeare's dramatic work, just 
as the union of soul and body constitutes life, both 
elements being equally necessary to the existence of the 
individual. Before the death of Caesar was planned, the 
play does not begin ; after the death of Brutus, it ends. 

It is, then, upon the character of Brutus, the soul of 
his drama, that Shakspeare has stamped the impress of 
his genius ; and it is all the more admirable m this 



JULIUS CJESAR. 245 

picture, because, while remaining faithful to history, he 
has made it also a work of creation, and has presented 
Plutarch's Brutus to us as truthfully and completely in 
the scenes which the poet has imagined, as in those which 
the historian had supplied. That dreamy spirit ever busied 
in self-examination, that disturbance of a stern conscience 
at the first indications of a duty that is still doubtful, 
that calm and resolute firmness- as soon as the duty 
becomes certain, that profound and almost painful sensi- 
bility, ever restrained by the rigour of the most austere 
principles, that gentleness of soul which never disappears 
for a single moment amidst the most cruel offices of 
virtue, — in fine, the character of Brutus, as its idea is pre- 
sent to us all, proceeds animate and unchanging through 
the different scenes of life in which we meet it, and in 
which we cannot doubt that it appeared under the very 
aspect with which the poet has clothed it. 

Perhaps this historical fidelity may have occasioned 
the coldness of Shakspeare's critics regarding the tragedy 
of "Julius -Caesar." They could not discover in it those 
features of almost wild originality which strike us in the 
works which Shakspeare has composed upon modern 
subjects, foreign to the actual habits of our life, as well 
as to the classical ideas upon which the habits of our 
mind have been formed. The manners of Hotspur are 
certainly more original to us than those of Brutus, and 
they are also more original in themselves. The grandeur 
of the characters of the Middle Ages is strongly impressed 



U3 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

with originality ; the grandeur of the ancients arises witja. 
regularity upon the basis of certain general principles, 
which leave no other sensible difference between indivi- 
duals than the difference of elevation to which they 
attain. This was felt by Shakspeare ; he merely thought 
to enhance Brutus, and not to make him singular. The 
other personages, being placed in an inferior sphere, 
resume somewhat of the liberty of their individual 
character, because they are free from that rule of perfec- 
tion which duty imposes upon Brutus. The poet also 
seems to play around them with less respect, and to allow 
himself to engraft upon them several forms which belong 
to himself rather than to them. Cassius, disdainfully 
comparing the bodily strength of Caesar to his own, and 
running through the streets of Rome by night, in the 
midst of the storm, to assuage the fever of dangers which 
devours him, bears much greater resemblance to a 
comrade of Canute or of Harold than to a Roman of the 
time of Caesar ; but this barbarian tint throws over the 
irregularities of Cassius an interest which would not 
perhaps arise with such liveliness from the historical resem- 
blance. M. Schlegel, whose opinions upon Shakspeare 
always deserve great consideration, seems to me, however, 
to fall into a slight error when he remarks that " the 
poet has pointed out with great nicety the superiority of 
Cassius over Brutus in independent volition and discern- 
ment in judging of human affairs." I think, on the 
contrary, that Shakspeare' s admirable art consists, in this 



JULIUS CESAR. * 247 

piece, in preserving to the principal personage an entire 
superiority, even when he is mistaken, and in making this 
evident by the very fact that he falls into error, and yet 
is deferred to, and that the reason of the others yields 
■with confidence to the mistake of Brutus. Brutus goes 
sb ; far as to do himself a wrong ; in his quarrel with 
Cassius, overcome for a moment by terrible and secret 
grief, he forgets the moderation which becomes him \ in 
fine, Brutus is wrong once, and yet Cassius humbles 
himself, for Brutus has in fact continued greater than he. 

Caesar's character may perhaps appear to us rather too 
much disfigured by that boastfulness which is common to 
all barbarous times in which individual force, incessantly 
called upon to engage in the most terrible struggles, 
can sustain itself only by a lofty consciousness of its own 
power, and even has need to be supported by the idea 
which others entertain of it. It was necessary to display 
in Caesar the force which had subjugated the Romans, 
and the pride which crushed them j Shakspeare had 
only one position in which he could manifest this state of 
the soul of his hero; and he, consequently, laid the 
colour on too thickly. Nevertheless, his Caesar, I 
confess, does not appear to me more false than our own. 
Shakspeare even seems to me to have better preserved, 
in the midst of his rhodomontades, those forms of 
equality which the despot of a republic ever maintains 
towards those whom he oppresses. 

The tone of " Julius Caesar" is more generally 



24 S SHAKSPE ARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

sustained than that of most of the other tragedies of 
Shakspeare. Scarcely, throughout the whole of the 
part of Brutus, do we meet with a single vulgar image ; 
and the only one at all open to the charge of vulgarity 
occurs when he gives way to anger. The visible care 
which the poet has taken to imitate the laconic language 
which history attributes to his hero, has very rarely led 
him into affectation, unless perhaps in the speech of 
Brutus to the people, which is a model of the scholastic 
eloquence of the age in which the author lived. The 
language of Cassius, more figurative because it is more 
passionate, and distinguished by a less simple loftiness 
than that of Brutus, is nevertheless equally exempt from 
triviality. Antony's harangue is a model of adroitness 
and of the feigned simplicity of a skilful tactician, who is 
desirous to gain the minds of a coarse and changeful 
multitude. Voltaire blames Shakspeare, at least with 
severity, for having presented under a comic form the 
scene at the feast of Lupercal, the substance of which, 
he says, " is so noble and interesting." Voltaire sees 
here nothing but a crown demanded of a free people, 
who refuse it ; but Caesar making himself, in presence 
of the people, the actor of a farce prepared for his own 
aggrandisement, and in despair at the applause bestowed 
on the manner in which he acts his part, was in truth, to 
the wits of Rome, something extremely comic, which 
could not be presented to them under any other form. 
The action of the piece comprises the period from the 



JULIUS CESAR 249 

triumph of Caesar, after the victory gained over young 
Pompey, until the death of Brutus, which gives it a 
duration of nearly three years and a half. 

There is in English another tragedy on " Julius Caesar/' 
composed by Lord Sterline, and known to the public, as 
it would appear, several years before Shakspeare com- 
posed his drama, so that he may have borrowed some 
ideas from it. This tragedy ends with the death of Caesar, 
which the author has thrown into, the narrative form. A 
Doctor Richard Eedes, celebrated in his time as a tragic 
poet, had also written a Latin play on the same subject, 
which was printed, it is said, in 15S2, but which has 
been lost, as well as an English play entitled " The 
History of Caesar and Pompey," which was written 
before the year 1579. In 1607, a play was printed in 
London under the title of "The Tragedie of Caesar and 
Pompey, jor^ Cesar's Revenge." This drama, which 
extends from the battle of Pharsalia to that of Plrilippi, 
was performed at a private theatre, by some students of 
Oxford, and it is supposed that it was printed in con- 
sequence of the successful performance of Shakspeare's 
tragedy, which Malone's chronology refers to the same 

J ' iq 90161 

" Julius Caesar" was performed, as corrected by 
Dry den and Davenant, under the title of "Julius Caesar, 
with the Death of Brutus," and was printed in London, 

m l ' » \n& TsBnir moifr oj 

The Duke of Buckingham also remodelled this same 



250 SHAKSPEARE'S, TRAGEDIES. 

tragedy, dividing it into two parts ; the first under the 
title of " Julius Csesar," with many alterations, a pro- 
logue and a chorus ; and the second under the title of 
" Marcus Brutus," with a prologue and two choruses. 
Both were printed in 1722. 

■IJUHTO 

tt§ lo tooM a aoinaV ni doao saw kmrrT " 

»d aloo r iq add I ;thoo fBnoaxaq aid xol oriw 

ni pjmie-g anoxogiv aid 8B Haw 8B .donbnoa aid lo navrg 

9if t v/f ni99daa ifisig ni blad saw ,xbw lo axLeHs 9ii 

riiOYr anondiiv a Sad$ JbanaqqjBd dl ,oiidnq9X 9dd lo 

d nvfBib don ,Bnofn9b89(T b9H~B9 ^diread dB9ig 

[fel t iooM add lb eufoh add \d tod f adidaqqB 

aldon baa amxeda add ^d baubdna <ad baa \ mid 

xad lo bevjomaae \Uaape aiHBoad ,\bal add lo siaom 

Jbanxsm axaw jedi tedl Jnlaaaaona oa %aw fioiaaeq ii9dT 

i9d aiBm od xawoq iisd$ ni Ha bib enoiMai iad dgiroddlB 

ao,B9q dona ni xaddagot beiil ^adT .bnBdaird TaddonB aifid 

i 9i9 dJ dfidd ,9aiii9Y dB ai9 w ^addalMw bxoanoo bcia 

\aw iadt noidoB 10 bxow xaddia madd n99wd9d b983Bq 

od gnr/Iogax ^rtfiidanaV" adT .noidoaftB lo aviaaaxqxa 

t emqvO cd ffiBdfnBffi \3d$ doirfw noaniBg add agfratfo 

doidw aqooxd add lo briBrnmoD add od xooM 9dd badoalaa 

d'gnoddlA Jmsfei dsdd xol banidaah ypdt 

'tel jnal od baaoqoxq inonorf add ddiw bssaslq ^lamaxdxa 



.aaiaaoAAT s ( a#Aa c i&/ 

sdt rabnir isift odl j 8taq owJ otai h goibivib 

3noitei9^lB vhbcu tfi'cw '\xb8ss0 anilr/l " lo aliij 
nfi labim bnooaa sd amroifo b Jbaa augol 

rtodoowJ bos 3u§oIoiq fi'iitiw "^irtmff anon 

.SSYI hi bslnhq &' 

OTHELLO. 

(1611.) 



" There was once in Venice a Moor of great merit, 
who for his personal courage, and the proofs he had 
given of his conduct, as well as his vigorous genius in 
the affairs of war, was held in great esteem by the lords 
of the republic. It happened that a virtuous woman, of 
great beauty, called Desdemona, not drawn by female 
appetite, but by the virtue of the Moor, fell in love with 
him ; and he, subdued by the charms and noble senti- 
ments of the lady, became equally enamoured of her. 
Their passion was so successful, that they were married, 
although her relations did all in their power to make her 
take another husband. They lived together in such peace 
and concord while they were at Venice, that there never 
passed between them either word or action that was not 
expressive of affection. The Venetians, resolving to 
change the garrison which they maintain in Cyprus, 
selected the Moor to the command of the troops which 
they destined for that island. Although he was 
extremely pleased with the honour proposed to him, yet 



252 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

was his joy diminished when he reflected on the length 
and inconvenience of the voyage. His wife was very 
much vexed at seeing the Moor disturbed; and, not 
knowing the reason, said to him one day at dinner, 
' How can you be so melancholy, after having received 
from the Senate so hi^h and so honourable a distinc- 
tion?' — 'My love for you, Desdemona,' replied the 
Moor, ' disturbs my enjoyment of the rank conferred 
upon me, since I am now exposed to this alternative — 
I must either endanger your life by sea, or leave you at 
Venice. The first will be terrible, as I shall suffer 
extremely from every fatigue you undergo, from every 
danger that threatens you ; the second would render 
fiSePinsuppdrtable^b sfi^Mi^W' parting fron¥^<9& would 
be parting from my life.' ' Ah ! husband/ returned 
Desdemona, 'why do you perplex yourself with such 
idle imaginations? I will follow you wherever you go, 
though it were necessary to pass through fire instead of 
only going by water in a safe and well-equipped vessel/ 
The Moor then tenderly embraced his wife, saying, 
'May Heaven long preserve us in this degree of 
reciprocal affection!' Soon afterwards, he went on 
board the galley with his wife, and sailed for Cyprus 
with a favourable wind. 

" He had in his company an ensign of a very amiable 
outward appearance, but whose character was extremely 
treacherous and base. This rascal had also conducted 
his wife with him to Cyprus, who was a handsome and 



OTHELLO. 253 

discreet woman ; and, being an Italian, Desdemona was 
so fond of her, that they passed the greatest part of their 
time together. In the same company was also a lieu- 
tenant, to whom the Moor was much attached. The 
lieutenant went often to the Moor's house, and dined 
frequently with him and his wife. Desdemona, seeing 
that the Moor was so fond of him, showed him every 
mark of attention and civility, with which the Moor was 
much pleased. The detestable ensign, forgetting his 
duty to his own wife, and violating all the laws of 
friendship, honour, and gratitude, with which he was 
bound to the Moor, fell passionately in love with 
Desdemona, and sought by all the private means in his 
power to make her conscious of his love. But she was 
so entirely taken up with the Moor, that she thought 
neither of him nor of any one else; and all that he did 
to engage her affections, produced not the least effect. 
He then took it into his head that this neglect arose; 
from her being pre-engaged in favour of the lieutenant ; 
and not only determined to get rid of him, but changed 
his affection for her into the most bitter hatred. He 
studied, besides, how he might prevent in future the 
Moor from living happily with Desdemona, should his 
passion not be gratified. Revolving in his mind a 
variety of methods, all impious, and abominable, he at 
last determined to accuse her to the Moor of adultery 
with the lieutenant. But knowing the Moor's great 
affection for Desdemona, and his friendship for the 



254 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

lieutenant, he determined to wait till time and place 
afforded him a fit opportunity for entering on his 
wicked design ; and it was not long before the Moor 
degraded the lieutenant for having drawn his sword 
and wounded a soldier upon guard. This accident was 
so painful to Desdemona, that she often tried to obtain 
for him her husband's par^te TilfiMl&'meantiine, the 
Moor had observed to the ensign, that his wife teased 
him so much in favour of the lieutenant, that he feared 
he should be obliged at last to restore to him his 
commission. ' Perhaps,' said the villain, c Desdemona 
is fond of his company.' c And why?' said the Moor. 
'Nay,' replied he, ' I do not choose to meddle between 
man and wife ; but if you watch her properly, you will 
understand me.' r\ T or would he, to the earnest 
entreaties of the Moor, afford any further explana- 
tion .ftiiflw nx bod 9ilt no gimm 9rfl nwob lli/q M 

The novelist then goes on to relate all the practices of 
the perfidious ensign to convince Othello of Desdemona' s 
infidelity. There is not a single detail in Shakspeare's 
tragedy which does not occur also in Cinthio's novel. 
The handkerchief of Desdemona, that precious handker- 
chief which the Moor had inherited from his mother, and 
which he had given to his wife during the early days of 
their love ; the manner in which the ensign obtains 
possession of it, and leads to its discovery in the chamber 
,83THJio) dliw below <89ib 3fi bus .a-glsae srLt lo 

1 See Giraldi Cinthio's " Hecatommithi," printed in Payne Collier's " Shak- 
speare's Library," vol. ii. 



OTHBHBJXaqgaAHg 255 

of the lieutenant, whom he is desirous to ruin ; the 
Moor's insistence upon having this handkerchief 
produced, and the trouble into which Desdemona is 
thrown by its loss ; the artful conversation of the ensign 
with the lieutenant, to which the Moor listens at a 
distance, and fancies he hears all that he dreads ; the 
plot of the duped Moor and: the wretch who is deceiving 
him, to assassinate the lieutenant ; the blow which the 
ensign strikes him from behind, and which cuts off his 
leg; in a word, all the facts, whether important or not, 
upon which the various scenes of the play successively 
rest, have been supplied to the poet by the novelist, who 
had doubtless added a great number of embellishments 
to the historical tradition which he had discovered. The 
denouement alone is different ; in the novel, the Moor 
and the ensign together murder Desdemona during the 
night, pull down the ceiling on the bed in which she 
slept, and say she has been crushed by this accident. 
The true cause of her death long remains unknown. 
Ere long the Moor conceives a dislike to the ensign, and 
dismisses him from his army. Another adventure leads 
the ensign, on his return to Venice, to accuse the Moor 
of the murder of his wife. The Moor is recalled to 
Venice, and put to the torture, but he denies the charge; 
he is banished, and the relatives of Desdemona have him 
assassinated in his exile. A new crime leads to the 
arrest of the ensign, and he dies, racked with tortures. 
:t The ensign's wife, who had been informed of the whole 



256 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

affair," says Giraldi Cinthio, f/ after his death, thus 
circumstantially related this story." 

It is clear that this denouement could not be brought 
on the stage ; and Shakspeare changed it because it was 
absolutely necessary to do so. In other respects, he has 
retained and reproduced every incident ; and not only has 
he omitted nothing, but he has added nothing. He seems 
to have attached almost no importance to the facts 
themselves ; he took them as he found them, without 
giving himself the trouble to invent the slightest addition, 
or to alter the slightest incident. 

He has, however, created the whole; for, into the 
facts which he has thus exactly borrowed from another, 
he has infused a vitality which they did not inherently 
possess. The narrative of Giraldi Cinthio is complete ; 
it is deficient in nothing that seems essential to the 
interest of a recital; situations, incidents, progressive 
development of the principal event, external and material 
construction, so to speak, of a pathetic and singular 
adventure— all these things are contained in it, ready for 
use ; and some of the conversations even are not wanting 
in a natural and touching simplicity. But the genius 
which supplies the actors to such a scene, which creates 
individuals, imparts to each his peculiar figure and 
character, and enables us to witness their actions, to 
hear their words, to anticipate their thoughts, and to 
enter into their feelings \ that vivifying power which com- 
mands facts to rise, to go onward, to display themselves 



OTHELLO. m 

and to effect their accomplishment ; that creative breath, 
which, diffusing itself over the past, resuscitates it, 
and fills it in some sort with a present and imperish- 
able vitality ; — this is what Shakspeare alone possessed ; 
and by means of this, from a forgotten novel, he made 
" Othello." hriB 

All subsists, in fact, and yet all is changed. We^ 
longer hear of a Moor, a lieutenant, an ensign, and a 
woman, the victim of jealousy and treason. We behold 
Othello, Cassio, lago, and Desdemona, real and living 
beings, who resemble no other, who present themselves 
in flesh and bone before the spectator, — all entwined by 
the bonds of a common position, all carried away by 
the same event, yet each having his own personal 
nature and distinct physiognomy, and each co-operating 
to produce the general effect by ideas, feelings, passions, 
and acts, which are peculiar to him, and result from his 
individuality. It was not the fact, it was not the posi- 
tion, which struck the poet, and from which he sought 
to obtain all his means of awakening interest and 
emotion. The position appeared to him to possess the 
conditions of a great dramatic scene ; the fact struck 
him as a suitable framework into which life might be 
appropriately introduced. Suddenly he gave birth to 
beings complete in themselves, animated and tragic, 
independently of every particular position and every 
determinate fact; he brought them forth capable of 
feeling, and of displaying beneath our eyes, all that the 



258 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

special event in which they were about to take part 
could make human nature experience and produce j and 
he launched them forth into this event, feeling very sure 
that,, whatever circumstances might be furnished him 
by the narrative, he would find in them, as he had made 
them, a fruitful source of pathetic effects and of truth. 

Thus the poet creates, and such is poetical genius. 
Events, and even positions, are not what he deems most 
important, or what he takes delight in inventing f his 
power aims at exercising itself otherwise than in searching- 
after incidents of a more or less singular character, and 
adventures of a more or less touching nature ; it mani- 
fests itself by the creation of man himself; and when it 
creates man, it creates him complete, armed at all points, 
as he should be to suffice for all the vicissitudes of life, 
and to present the aspect of reality in every sense of the 
word. Othello is something far more than a blind 
and jealous husband, urged to commit murder by his 
jealousy ; this is only his position during the play, and 
his character goes far beyond his position. The sun- 
burnt Moor, with ardent blood, and a keen and brutal 
imagination, credulous by the violence of his temper- 
ament as well as by the excess of his passion ; the 
successful soldier, proud of his fortune and his glory, 
respectful and submissive to the power from which he 
holds his rank, never forgetting the duties of war in the 
blandishments of love, and bitterly regretting the joys 
of war when he loses all the happiness of love ; the man 



OTHELLO. 259 

whose life has been harsh and agitated, for whom 
gentle and tender pleasures are something novel which 
astonishes while it delights him, and which does not 
inspire him with a feeling of security, although his 
character is full of generosity and confidence ; Othello, 
in a word, delineated, not only in those portions of 
himself which have a present and direct connection with 
the accidental position in which he is placed, but in the 
whole extent of his nature, and as he has been made by 
the entire course of his destiny f — this is what Shak- 
speare enables us to see. In the same manner, Iago is 
not merely an irritated enemy desirous of revenge, or an 
ordinary rascal anxious to destroy a happiness which he 
cannot contemplate with satisfaction ; he is a cynical 
and reasoning wretch, who has made for himself a philo- 
sophy of egotism, and a science of crime ; who looks 
upon men merely as instruments or obstacles to his 
personal interests \ who despises virtue as an absurdity, 
and yet hates it as an injury ; who preserves entire 
independence of thought, while engaged in the most 
servile conduct; and who, at the very moment when 
his crimes are about to cost him his life, still enjoys, 
with ferocious pride, the evil which he has done, as if it- 
were a proof of his superiority. 

Pass in review all the personages of the tragedy, from 
its heroes down to the least important characters — 
Desdemona, Cassio, Emilia, Bianca ; we behold them 
appearing, not under vague aspects, and with those 

s 2 



SHAKSPEAKE'S TRAGEDIES. 



features only which correspond to their dramatic position, 
but with precise and complete forms, and all the elements 
which constitute personality. Cassio is not introduced 
merely to become the object of Othello's jealousy, and 
as a necessity of the drama; he has his own character, 
inclinations, qualities, and defects ; and from what he is, 
naturally flows the influence which he exercises upon 
what occurs to him. Emilia is not merely an attendant 
employed by the poet as an instrument either of the 
entanglement, or of the discovery of the perfidies which 
lead to the catastrophe ; she is the wife of Iago, whom 
she does not love, and whom she obeys because she fears 
him ; but although she distrusts him, she has actually 
contracted, in the society of that man, somewhat of the 
immorality of his mind; nothing is pure either in her 
thoughts or in her words ; and yet she is kind-hearted 
and attached to her mistress, and detests evil and deeds 
! of darkness. Bianca herself has her own physiognomy, 
entirely independent of the little part which she plays in 
the action. Forget the events, set aside the drama ; and 
all these personages will continue real, animated, and 
distinct ; they possess inherent vitality, and their existence 
will not disappear with their position. In them is 
displayed the creative power of the poet, and the facts, 
to him, are only the stage upon which he bids his 
characters appear. 

Just as the novel of Giraldi Cinthio, in Shakspeare's 
hands, became " Othello/' so, in the hands of Voltaire, 



OTHELLO. -<0 

" Othello" became " Zaire." I do not wish to compare 
the two works ; such comparisons are almost always vain 
jeux cVesjrrit, which prove nothing, except the personal 
opinion of the judge himself. Voltaire also was a man 
of genius ; the best proof of genius, is the empire which 
it wields over men ; wherever the power of interesting, 
moving, and charming a whole people is displayed, this 
fact alone answers every objection ; genius is there, 
whatever fault may be found with the dramatic system 
or the poet. But it is curious to observe the infinite 
variety of the means by which genius manifests itself, 
and how r many different forms the same groundwork of 
positions and feelings may receive from it. 

Shakspeare borrowed facts from the Italian novelist ; 
with the exception of the denouement, he has rejected 
and invented none. -■- Now, facts are precisely what 
Voltaire has not borrowed from Shakspeare. The entire 
contexture of the drama, the places, incidents and 
springs of action, are all new — all of his own creation. 
That which struck V oltaire, and which he desired to 
reproduce, w 7 as the passion, the jealousy — its blindness 
and violence ; the conflict of love and duty, and its tragic 
results. The whole power of his imagination was brought 
to bear upon the development of this position. The 
fable, a free invention, was constructed with this sole 
end in view. Lusignan, Nerestan, the ransom of the 
prisoners — all the circumstances are intended to place 
Zaire between her love and the faith of her ..father, to 



262 SHAKSPEARES TRAGEDIES. 



explain the error of Orosmane, and thus to lead to the 
progressive manifestation of the feelings which the poet 
desired to delineate. He has not impressed upon his 
personages an individual and complete character, inde- 
pendent of the circumstances in which they appear. 
They exist only by and for passion. Beyond their love 
and their misfortune, Orosmane and Zaire have nothing 
to distinguish them, to give them a physiognomy 
peculiarly their own, and to make them everywhere 
recognizable. They are not real individuals, in whom are 
revealed, in connection with one of the incidents of their 
life, the particular characteristics of their nature and the 
impress of then whole existence. They are in some sort 
general, and consequently, somewhat vague beings, in 
whom love, jealousy, and misfortune are momentarily 
personified, and who interest less on then own account, 

and by reason of their own character, than because they 
^nirnBrd dob ^ttsmlnssum dtu 10 siaf oxJt ipi mrmj 
then become, for a time, the representatives of this 

portion of the feelings, and possible destinies of human 

;q eaaf ton si olloiftQ .A jpml.B 

From this manner of conceiving the subiect, V oltaire 

has derived admirable beauties. Grave defects and 
t JfiJ8tafic o;e m ^Bothcw Jon bsqd od m iu6 Ton 

omissions have also resulted from it. The gravest of all 

is that romantic tint which, as it were, subjects the 

whole man to love, and thus limits the field of poetry, at 

the same time that it derogates from truth. I will 

quote only one example of the effects of this system ; 

. . ■ . . giiXrl 

but it will suffice to indicate all. 



The Senate of Venice has just assured Othello of the 
tranquil possession of Desdemona ; he is happy, but he 
must depart \ he must embark for Cyprus, and devote 
his attention to the expedition confided to his care ; so 
he says, 

" Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour 
Of love, of worldly matter and direction, 
To spend with thee : we must obey the time." 

^mongoig^iq ,e modi svig oi .msdi ifgiugrriieib oJ 
These Hnes struck Voltaire, and he has imitated them; 

but, in imitating them, what does he put into the mouth 

of Orosmane, when equally happy and confident ? Just 

the contrary of what Othello says :— 

°^» vais donner une heure aux soins de mon empire, 
Et le reste du jour sera a Zaire." 

7iimtnyjv danHdisim \ j\ a 

lhus, Orosmane, the proud sultan, who, a moment 

before, was speaking of war and conquest, expressing 

his alarm for the fate of the Mussulmans, and blaming 

the sloth of his neighbours, now appears as neither 

sultan nor warrior ; he forgets all else, and becomes only 

a lover. Assuredly, Othello is not less passionate than 

Orosmane, and his passion will be neither less credulous 

nor less violent ; but he does not abdicate, in an instant, 

all the interests, and all the thoughts, of his past and 

future life. Love possesses his heart without invading his 

whole existence. The passion of Orosmane is that of a 

young man who has never done anything, and never had 

anything to do, and who is as yet ignorant of the 






264 SHAKSPEARE'S TRAGEDIES. 

necessities and labours of the real world. That of 
Othello takes root in a more complete, more experi- 
enced, and more serious character. I believe it to be 
less factitious, and in greater conformity to moral 
probabilities, as well as to positive truth. But, how- 
ever this may be, the difference between the two systems 
is fully revealed in this feature alone. In one, the 
passion and the position are all • from them the poet 
derives all his means. In the other, he obtains his 
resources from individual characters and the whole of 
human nature ; passion and a position are, for him, only 
an opportunity for bringing them on the stage with 
greater energy and interest. - 

The action which constitutes the subject of " Othello" 
must be referred to the year 1570, the period of the 
principal attack of the Turks on the island of Cyprus, 
then under the rule of the Venetians. As for the date 
of the composition of the tragedy itself, Mr. Malone 
fixes it in the year 1611. Some critics doubt whether 
Shakspeare was acquainted with the original novel of 
Giraldi Cinthio, and suppose that he only had access to 
a French imitation of it, published at Paris in 1584, by 
Gabriel Chappuys. But the exactness with which Shak- 
speare has conformed to the Italian narrative, even in 
the slightest details, leads me to believe that he made 
use of some more literal English translation. 
Isb&tio ari\t bsirmxigiT )rftlo 



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DRAMATIC ART IN FRANCE IN 1830. 

•J9oq 9fij mmT irion ; Ila qxb noiJiaoq dm dub noisasq 

BY THE DUKE DE BROGLIE..» 
baa 8'I9J0B IBifc 

It was not in vain that some far-seeing, conservative, 
and especially wise spirits addressed themselves to the 
authorities in the year of grace 1829 : and not without 
good reason did they call to their aid Csesar and his 
legions — that is to say, his Excellency the Minister of 
the Interior and the honourable gentlemen of the 
Chamber of Deputies, adjuring them to save the 
sanctuary of the Muses from ruin, and to repulse the 
onward advance of the Barbarians. The danger was 
only too real; and this time, as in times gone by, as 
Csesar paid no regard to it, their pathetic complaints, 
their gemitus Britannorum, having been dissolved into 
empty vapour, behold, now the evil has become irre- 
mediable ! The Barbarians who knocked at the doors, 
emboldened by impunity, have forced their way through 
the first enclosure ; they have made a breach in the body 
of the place ; or rather, they have constrained the citadel 

1 Reprinted from the " Revue Francaise." January, 1830. 



266 SHAKSPEAKE IN FRANCE. 

itself to capitulate. The Theatre Francais has surren- 
dered through want of timely succour, because the 
opportunity for infusing into it new vitality was 
neglected. Attila-Shakspeare has taken possession of it 
with arms and baggage, his banners are streaming, and 
the clang of a thousand trumpet-calls sound in wild 
confusion. Alas ! poor poets of the old school, what 
will become of you? Nought remains but that feeble 
souls should surrender at discretion, and sacrifice them- 
selves on the altars of the false gods, and that true 
believers should cover their faces with their mantles. 

Banter apart, the revolution which has for some time 
been going on in the taste of the public is a curious 
phenomenon, and one singularly worthy of attention. 
Never has a remarkable change been introduced in a 
more startling mode and with greater rapidity, ^j^o 

Scarcely twenty years have elapsed since M. Nepo- 
mucene Lemercier launched, on the stage of the Odeon, 
the vessel which conveyed Christopher Columbus and his 
genius from Spain to America. We know what was 
the actual reception which this attempt in the romantic 
style met with. However, the name of the author com- 
manded respect, and Ins rare talent gave him at least a 
right to indulgence. In other respects he proved him- 
self quite as hardy and prudent as his hero ; he had, 
before hazarding his adventure, neglected nothing in 
order to disarm the prejudices of the pit. He only 
offered this foundling child as a caprice of his 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 267 

imagination — an unimportant freak ; in decorating it, he 
had not scrupled to profane the consecrated regulations 
of tragedy, of comedy, yea, even of melodrama. His 
friends protested in favour of his profound regard for 
the triple unity; for the most sacred Aristotelian 
trinity; for the canonical precepts which had been con- 
secrated in the poetic codes of Horace and Boileau, 
and illustrated in the learned glosses of Le Batteux and 
La Harpe, and in the "Rhetoric for Young Ladies/' 
Useless precautions ! In spite of the originality and un- 
questionable beauties which he displayed, his unfortunate 
"Columbus" was outrageously and repeatedly hissed. 
Those who' ventured to do him justice paid dearly for 
such audacity ; they narrowly escaped being torn to 
pieces by the rest of the spectators, to such an excessive 
height was the popular indignation roused ; there were, 
if we remember rightly, two who were almost knocked 
down on the spot — martyrs to a cause wmich had 
hardly sprung into life — the John Huss and Jerome of 
Prague of a doctrine which was yet to have its Luther 
and its Melancthon. 

At the present day, we behold at our theatres, with 
the greatest composure, the representation of pieces in 
which a duration of some twenty, thirty, or forty years, 
as the case may be, is condensed into an hour between 
eight and nine o'clock in the evening ; pieces in which, 
literally speaking, the principal personage — 

" Enfant au premier acte, est barbon an dernier ; " 



268 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

pieces which are not, in other respects, very much 
entitled to the indulgence which is thus shown to them. 
While seated serenely upon our benches, we follow, with- 
out the smallest compunction, King Louis XL from 
Plessis-les-Tours to Pennine, only regretting- that this 
trifling cruise is not for us entirely a pleasure- voyage. 

Seven or eight years ago two or three English come- 
dians, who happened to be in Paris, formed the scheme 
of giving us at the Theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin, — 
the Theatre of the "Eenmie a denx Maris "and of the 
" Pied de Mouton," — a specimen of their skill. Forth- 
with, a great stir arose. The capture of Calais and of 
Dunkirk by the troops of his Britannic Majesty would 
not certainly have excited a more patriotic wrath. As the 
guardians of pure doctrines, and the depositaries of whole- 
some traditions in all matters of taste, the boulevard 
public took this matter in hand with a quite inconceiv- 
able violence, and, had it not been for the intervention 
of the police, Heaven only knows whether the unfor- 
tunate gentlemen of the histrionic art from the other 
side of the Channel would not have been stoned. 

Who could then have foreseen that, three years later, 
the lions of Covent Garden and Drury Lane would 
continually cross and recross the Channel to minister to 
our gratification ? — that the most brilliant company of 
Paris would assiduously throng the most fashionable of 
our theatres in order to applaud them to the echo, and 
to lavish upon their system of declamation eulogies 



SHAKSPEARE KN T EKANCE. 3$ 

which (may we venture to say so ?) were perhaps rather 
exaggerated ? 

Every one will recollect the murmurs which, on the 
occasion of the first representation of the " Cid d'Anda- 
lousie," interrupted that charming scene in which the 
hero of the piece, sitting tranquilly at the feet of his 
beloved, — without purpose for the future, undisturbed 
by present cares, completely possessed with the idea of 
his approaching happiness, profoundly forgetful of the 
world, of men, and of all things, — occupies her with 
the fond recital of the progress of their mutual love, and 
recalls to her, in verses full of delicacy and grace, the 
first stealthy indications of their unspoken attachment. 

On this occasion, neither the talents of Talma, nor 
those of Mademoiselle Mars, could obtain any tolerance 
from the rigorous severity of the pit. The pit found 
that a beautiful scene w r as an appendage, that it inter- 
fered with the rapidity of the action ; in one wT>rd, that 
it openly violated the rule, Sender ad eventiim festina ; 
— it was therefore inexorable. 

Enter into the Theatre-Erancais on the following day ; 
there you will see Desdemona devoted to death by the 
stern Othello, yet half -escaping from his sinister designs 
and terribly distorted misconceptions, on the point of 
crossing the threshold of that fatal chamber wdhch was 
to become her sepulchre; you will see her, we say, 
pausing to detach, piece by piece, in the presence of 
the public, the ornaments with which she is decked, and 



270 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 



to converse carelessly with her maid; you will see her 
interrupt your confidence in the reality of the distress 
which is harrowing her, by informing herself of the 
news brought from Venice by her young relative, the 
messenger of the Senate ; then, all at once, recalling to 
her memory the days of her childhood, you will hear her 
murmur, in an under-tone, an old ballad, no way indi- 
cating her position, except by the inexplicable sadness 
which is impressed upon her. You will see her at 
length terminate this conversation by gravely discussing 
the virtue and the frailty of women ; by reproving 
with a modest and indulgent dignity the fickleness 
of Emilia, and humbly praying God to watch over her, 
and to keep her ever pure and discreet. And you will 
see the public justly delighted with this scene, and 
manifesting far more chagrin than impatience at its 
close. fI9CiT \ ££g anoiioB * 

It is right, nevertheless, to remark one thing ; namely, 
that this remarkable revolution has been accomplished in 
respect to the taste of the public rather, or at least more 
decidedly, than with respect to its doctrines. 

If a dramatic work be presented to the public, con- 
structed according to the new ideas, it is received with a 
degree of eagerness, — the -public is pleased with it, — it 
alone suffices to put them into good humour. The cup-- 
and-ball and penny-trumpet playthings of the favourites 
of Henry III., more than any kind of merit that belongs 
to the piece, have sustained the position of M. Dumas's 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 271 

drama. 1 The delight of seeing Richard of England- 
deformed, crippled and facetious — has redeemed what- 
ever might be deemed repulsive in the subject of " Jane 
Shore." "Olga" owes its success to the singular circum- 
stance of its having been played by comic actors ; and 
" Marino Faliero" owes some little of its repute to the 
idea which it suggests of a false alliance between tragedy 
and melodrama lX9fl 

But to tolerate, to connive, even to look with some 
satisfaction, is not entirely to approve. Should any one 
attempt to build too hastily on this foundation, if he 
were to rush to the conclusion that this same public has 
distinctly taken part in the controversy which has 
divided the literary world for fifteen or twenty years, he 
would very soon find himself considerably mistaken ; $& 
fact, there is often a very great difference between a 
man's actions and his principles, and many men who 
would gladly be libertines, would not dare openly to 
declare themselves free-thinkers. Our public smiles at 
the attempts of the innovators, but cannot escape feeling 
a few qualms of conscience ; it is gratified at them, but 
it is not quite sure whether it has any good right and 
reason for its gratification. Success and applause you may 
obtain from them, and that even at a very cheap rate \ 
provided, however, that this shall not be understood as 
furnishing any authoritative precedent. If, on the other 
hand, matters take a more serious turn ; if you ask the 

1 ffO' "Henri III. et sa Cour." 



272 SHAKSPEARE W FRANCE. 

public to commit itself by a definite profession of faith, 
and to give its sanction by any reflective and irrevocable 
act to any dogmas -of dramatic reform, you will be 
surprised at finding this same public infinitely cir- 
cumspect. 

We need not go far in search of the proof of this; 
the manifestations which were made at the first repre- 
sentation of the " Moor of Venice," were such as to 
leave no doubts on this point. 

On this occasion, in fact, the attempt was made 
without disguise. In its reception, there was no possi- 
bility of giving a tacit recognition of the change, 
while refusing, under shallow pretexts, to avow it. It 
was no longer a question as to the amount of encourage- 
ment that might be bestowed on a young author ; there 
could be no pretence of complacently shutting the eyes 
to this or that licence, in consideration of the address 
and caution shown in the style of its presentation ; and 
no motive for indulgence could be suggested either by 
the small importance of the work itself, or by the more or 
less fluctuating condition of the theatre. No! Now a 
Teal verdict had to be pronounced ; either a dramatic 
system entirely opposed to our own must be inaugurated, 
before gods and men, or its establishment must be 
defeated ; either William Shakspeare must be received 
or rejected as a rival of the masters of our stage. 

This event had been for a long time in preparation • 
and the result was awaited with some impatience. While 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 273 

announcing it with the most varying expectations, the 
majority of our public journals agreed in declaring that 
this would be a memorable day, — a day on which the 
dispute between the classical and romantic schools would 
be fought out upon an open arena, — a day which must 
decide either for the triumph, or for the failure, of the 
new doctrines in literature. 

Alas for the feebleness of human foresight ! This so 
decisive day has past, and, on the whole, we remain in 
very nearly the same position as before. The work of 
the great British tragedian was saluted with a thunder 
of applause ; this intelligence was communicated by these 
same journals, but they also informed us that the 
thunder of applause proceeded, almost exclusively, from 
a small group of passionate admirers, who had come 
with the set purpose of going into ecstasies at every 
point, comma, or interjection, and of bestowing with 
profuse liberality the epithets of idiot, imbecile, and dolt, 
upon every one who might seem to hesitate. On the other 
hand, sufficiently audible hisses broke out in different 
places I but it appeared that these hisses proceeded, not 
less exclusively, from another small group, quite as 
insignificant as the other, of embittered detractors, 
resolved to consider everything detestable, and to repay 
with equal liberality the vituperative epithets hurled 
at them by their adversaries. Between these two 
factions, the body of the audience in the pit appears to 
have preserved a reasonable neutrality. They were 



274 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

evidently on their guard, fearing lest their consecrated 
maxims should be violated, and they be led into some 
hasty demonstrations of feeling ; and yet they were sen- 
sible, profoundly sensible, of the great beauties of the 
piece. Accordingly, during the whole course of the repre- 
sentation, they appeared constantly curious, astonished, 
moved, indulgent, submitting with good grace to the 
boldest departures from received rules ; they willingly, 
though without warmth or violence, joined in the attempt 
to silence the detractors ; and they good-naturedly allowed 
free scope to the enthusiasts, while taking great care not 
to enlist themselves on their side, or to mingle in their 
transports. 

Thus then, their hearts were gained, but their minds 
remained still undecided ; the difficulty, with our re- 
formers, is not in obtaining a hearing; it is in pro- 
curing an open recognition even from those who give them 
their best possible wishes. They are in the same position 
as that which the negroes of Saint Domingo occupied 
during twenty years ; the public refuses, or at least hesitates, 
to recognise them. But with patience they will ultimately 
attain their end ; when once, in a revolution, power has 
been decidedly gained, right is never long withheld; 
they have triumphed over unreasonable habits and pre- 
judices, and over involuntary opposition ; this was the 
most intricate part of their work ; theories, especially 
those which are a little superannuated, have not so 
lingering an existence. 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 275 

Such then being the state of things — the progress of 
the spirit of innovation becoming every clay increasingly 
manifest, — it remains that we should inquire into the 
cause of this, and ask whether the change is for the 
better or for the worse, — whether the spirit of innovation 
is, this time, a spirit of light or a spirit of darkness ! 

A spirit of darkness, it is exclaimed, from one quarter. 
—a veritable child of perdition ! 

Consult, for instance, many of our men of taste ; enter, 
if admission is allowed to you, into one of their assem- 
blies ; and there, at first, you will hear much noise about 
the confusion of species, the neglect of rules, the forget - 
fulness of sound doctrines, and the contempt for true 
models ; afterwards, however little you may feel at ease 
in this select committee, you will speedily learn the parties 
to whom all this disorder is attributed. The author of 
" L'Allemagne," the writer of the " Genie clu Christian- 
isme," the translator of " Wallenstein/' the two Schle- 
gels, besides many others, are the guilty individuals ; their 
heads have been turned, and so they have tinned the 
heads of their fellows. M. de Stendhal takes Ins share 
in these anathemas ; the a Globe "' has its allotment. Not 
even M. Ladvocat, the publisher of the " Theatre 
Etranger/' has escaped from them. More than one 
sage poet, whether in the tragic or comic line, will 
inform you of this with all the seriousness in the 
world. If no one had ever taken it into his head to 
translate by the yard, the monstrous productions of 

T 2 



2T6 SHAKSPEAEE IN FRANCE. 

the countries situated beyond the Rhine, the Channel, 
or the Pyrenees-;, if he had not afterwards taken pains 
to publish them on fine paper and in elegant type, 
all with a huge parade of advertisements and placards, 
we should not have been brought into our present 
conditioitoa J 
doiWell said this, undoubtedly, and still better reasoned ! 

The innocence of this unsuspecting public has been 
wantonly abused. The Parisian folk, like the Pnyxian 
people in the " Knights" of Aristophanes, are poor fools 
who allow themselves— to be misled and duped by evil 
counsels. 

If we diligently make all possible inquiries, we shall 
also find, on the left bank of the Seine, a-rmmber of 
saloons in which are gathered every evening a company 
of worthy souls, who lament, with the truest sincerity, 
over the corruption of our manners. Hearing them, we 
might suspect that fire from heaven must fall upon us 
sooner or later; our wretched country is in a worse pass 
than even Sodom and Gomorrah ; the French Revolution 
has fatally corrupted the very core of our hearts ; and 
whom have we to thank for this accursed Revolution ? 
The Encyclopaedists, M. Turgot and his reforms, the 
publication of M. Necker's Compte-Rendu, the — who 
knows what ?— perhaps the substitution of waistcoats for 
vests, and the introduction of cabs ! 

The two arguments are equally forcible. To throw 
fire and flames at the corruption of manners, and to 



SHAKSPEAKE- IN FRANCE. 277 

raise loud cries about the decay of taste, to attribute 
it either to this or that event, to accuse these or those 
writers — one is, in truth, worth about as much as the 
other; the justice, good sense, and discernment are 
equal in either case. 

May we not, in fact, say, that the general sentiments of 
the masses, their habitual dispositions, and the ideas which 
rule them, are things which attach themselves to nothing, 
and which totter when they are but touched with the 
finger's end ? May we not say that these are at the mercy 
of any fortuitous circumstances, — things to be disposed 
of at pleasure by any half-dozen volumes ? 

The influence of great men is, indeed, vast • we cannot 
forget it — we would thank Heaven that it is so. And 
this influence is especially striking at epochs in winch 
any important change is accomplished in government, 
laws, manners or national taste ; nothing assuredly is 
more natural than this,- — nothing can be more just and 
salutary. But whence do great men derive this 
unquestionable ascendancy ? 

They belong to their time, — in this fact is the mystery 
explained ; they respond to its instincts, they anticipate 
its tendencies • the appeal which is addressed to all indis- 
criminately, they are the first to hear. That which to 
others is as yet only an indistinct longing, has disclosed 
its secret to them. Superior as they are, they march at 
the head, unfolding their wings to every breeze that 
rises, clearing the path, removing obstacles, and revealing 



278 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

to the astonished masses, the luminous truths and the 
eternal laws which occasion their confused desires and 
their latest fancies. Herein, and herein only, resides 
all their power : this is the condition of their success. 

The philosophers of the last century, then, were not 
the efficient causes of the great and glorious movement 
of 1789 ; such honour is not theirs. The general 
causes which, during a long course of years, prepared 
for 1789, these same causes in their early infancy gave 
birth to the philosophers of the last century. 

And neither are the great writers of the present day 
the men who have transformed the taste of the public ; 
we would rather say that the general causes, which were 
destined to produce this metamorphosis, excited and 
inspired, when the proper moment arrived, the great 
writers of our time. 

What, then, were the causes of the French Revolu- 
tion ? 

This, certainly, is neither the time nor the place to 
make such an inquiry; but every man of good sense 
and true wisdom will unhesitatingly allow that the 
causes for such an event must have been, and in fact 
were, very numerous, very profound, and very diversified ; 
that they were active and potent causes, — causes which, 
by reason of their number, their depth, and their 
diversity, were beyond all external control, and against 
which it were puerile to entertain any spite, and absurd 
to attempt any revolt. 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 279 

And, perchance, no other than these same causes have 
now changed the face of our literature, — perchance these 
same causes have now renovated the theatre, after 
having reformed, and precisely because they have 
reformed, the spectators. If so, need we feel surprise ? 
— is there anything very extraordinary in this ? Would 
it not argue a ridiculous puerility to take offence at 
such a circumstance, and angrily to hurl stones at it ? 

Indeed everything depends upon the state of all other 
things; the human mind is one single fabric. The 
different faculties, which in then" union constitute the 
entire man, aid and appeal to one another continually. 
Rarely do they march in a regular and parallel advance ; 
but as soon as any one of them has gained decidedly 
upon the others, the others hasten to overtake it. 

During two centuries, the French people offered a 
singular spectacle to the world ; for that time it moved 
in the foremost ranks of European civilisation, that is to 
say, so far as it was intrinsically worthy of occupying 
such a position ; but to any one who takes merely a 
superficial glance, it might appear almost to have solved 
the problem, of being at once the most frivolous and 
the most serious of all peoples, — the most frivolous in 
important matters, the most flippant in all that affects the 
great interests of society and humanity, and the most 
grave, the most pedantic, in puerilities and trifles. It 
was, by a hierarchical division, separated into classes, but 
this classification no longer corresponded to anything 



^80 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

that was useful or even real ; it had no end out of itself, 
that is to say, it only existed for the mere sake of 
existence, to excite arrogance and vanity in the ; higher 
ranks, and envy in the lower. However, all social 
conditions had this in common, that they were all equally 
deprived of all political rights, equally estranged from 
all public existence,_equally excluded from -all partici- 
pation in affairs of State, and from all active or civic 
callings. 3 gaormabsq d&$ xxasd evad Jain 

The first rank was held by the Court nobility. This 
nobility, excepting some months of occupation in times 
of war, was, by its very birthright, given up to 
enjoyment; and this was their glory. 

The provincial nobility occupied the second rank. 
These, in their smaller circle, imitated their betters at 
Court. While detesting their brilliant model, they yet 
copied it ; it never entered into the thoughts of any of their 
members to seek, by relations with the people, a credit 
and importance which they did not possess by any 
qualities of their ancestors, or any favours from their 

E-^SStam Ik lo , 

The civic robe had its functions; it was absolutely 

necessary that the townsmen should embrace different 
professions; but the functions of the magistracy were 
often an object of ridicule and disdain. In the great 
parliamentary families, each aimed at laying aside the 
civic robe, in order to become invested with the embroi- 
dered dress. The professions of civil life stamped those 



SHAKSPEAEE IN FRANCE. 281 

who abandoned themselves to it with vulgarity • in the 
good families among the townspeople, each aimed at 
acquiring some polish by purchasing a position as 
secretary to the King. 

The artisans in the towns, the villagers in the country* 
worthy heirs of Jacques Bonhomme, — a gentleman subject 
to taxes and duties at discretion, — counted for nothing, 
and were nothing. r 

What must have been the preferences of a society so 
constituted? 

Three things- — three, in truth, and no more : ambition, 
gallantry, ^nd dissipation. Ambition, that is to say the 
disposition to gain advancement from a master, to obtain 
favours, distinctions, eminent positions, pensions, and to 
obtain them by favouritism and the power of being 
agreeable, by intrigues and solicitations. Gallantry— 
the gratification of personal vanity or sensuality. Lastly, 
dissipation-— dissipation under all forms, hunting parties 
and gambling parties, assemblies for pleasure or 
debauchery, balls, suppers, sights ; dissipation as the 
definitive aim of existence, the final end of all means, — 
life having apparently been given to man only for 
enjoyment, and time only to be squandered and killed. 

We are speaking of society in general, and without 
forgetting the fact that these absolute verdicts, by 
reason of their very absoluteness, are always somewhat 
unjust and exaggerated. 

But it is worthy of remark that ir 



282 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

mode of existence, in this state of living and acting, of 
thinking and feeling, in which vanity was so predominant, 
nothing was abandoned to caprice ; no one affected a 
style of independence } on the contrary, all was done 
according to rule, — everywhere was method to be 
observed. 

Louis XIV., while changing his nobles into courtiers, 
reducing his Parliaments to the level of dramatic critics, 
despoiling the townspeople of their franchises, and, to say 
all in one word, while transforming the political order of 
the entire nation into a civil order — had nevertheless 
contrived in some sort to impress on the manners and 
habits which resulted therefrom, something of dignity 
and formality which belonged not to their nature, — 
far from it, — but to his character. 

His Court was grave, although the morals of the 
courtiers were in no respect better, on this account ; his 
magistrates were grave without being independent ; the 
temper of his times was grave and yet servile. 

After his reign, that imperious necessity by which man 
is impelled to exalt into maxims the motives, whatever 
they may be, which determine his conduct, and to refer his 
own conduct to certain principles, were it only in order 
that he may know what he has done, and whither he is 
tending, — which also leads him thus to regard the 
actions of others, were it only that he may be able to 
approve or condemn them, — this necessity operated, if 
not in the same sense, yet in one analogous to that in 



SHAKSPEAEE IN FRANCE. 283 

which it had operated under Louis XIV. Thus the best 
method of making way in the world became a science 
which the old courtier taught ex cathedra to his children 
— a science which had its dogmas, its precepts, and its 
traditions. 

Not more methodically does an engineer make his 
approaches to a place which he is besieging, than did 
those ambitious of vindicating the worthiness of their 
descent, push their researches into the offices of the 
minister and the cabinets of Versailles. The Duke de 
Saint Simon, the most severe, the sincerest, and the most 
honourable man that ever lived at the Court, devoted 
three-fourths of his honourable life to the decision of 
points of precedence or respect, on his own account or 
for those connected with him, — questions of which 
even the most important could, at the present day, 
only induce us to shrug our shoulders and to smile 
derisively. Sometimes he displayed more character 
than would have been necessary, on the other side of 
the Channel, to enable a Marlborough or a Bolingbroke 
to impose peace or war on their sovereign, and 
more erudition and research than a Benedictine would 
put into a folio volume. 

Gallantry was a perpetual war between the two sexes, 
— a war which had its tactics and stratagems, its prin- 
ciples of attack and defence, its appropriate times for 
resistance and surrender, its rights of conquest, and its 
law of nations. 



284 SHAKSPEAEE IN FRANCE. 

In fact, the life of society was obliged to submit to 
all tlie exigencies of a conventional morality, very dif- 
ferent from true morality, often in direct opposition to it, 
but quite as rigorous, and even more inaccessible to 
repentance. It recognised as the supreme law, even in 
its most minute details, a certain code of proprieties, the 
yoke of which must be borne gracefully,— the sensibi- 
lities were to be controlled, while the scholar must 
appear perfectly at ease. 

Good-breeding was the highest of human attainments ; 
and the art of living, the first of all arts. 

It is said that literature expresses the life of society 
— especially is this affirmed of dramatic literature. If 
this be true, and, in a certain sense, it midoubtedlyi is 
true, due limitations being conceded, then our general 
literature, and more especially our drama, must have 
reflected more or less accurately this twofold character 
of frivolity as to the essence of things, and pedantry as 
to their forms, taenc 

Accordingly it has done both. Here, too, undoubtedly, 
exceptions must be made, and that to a considerable 
extent. Our literature has ruled in Europe for a hundred 
years, and never has it demanded from men an admira- 
tion to which it was not reasonably and justly entitled ; 
but still with regard to its -most -general features, we may 
admit that it has been neither learned, as the literature 
of Germany at the present time is, and as was Italian 
literature in the times of Petrarch and Politian, nor 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 23a 

popular as the literature of Spain was, during the period 
of its greatest vigour. It was essentially and pre- 
eminently a polite literature in which the main result 
aimed at was conversation. Bkb <bi 

The same may be said of our drama. Regarded in 
its most general features, it was not so much a national 
drama as an^ elegant and fashionable amusement, a 
pastime for gentlemen of respectable station and 
bearing, at which the public might assist if it paid 
HberaHy for the h-onoirr ; nearly as it is allowed occa- 
sionally to look on, from the outer side of the barriers, 
and 1 watch the progress of a dress ball or a State 

Admiration for the ancients was universally affected ; 
our watchword was "Imitate the Ancients;" this was 
our ' ' Montjoie Saint-Denis ! " in literature. And yet a 
true appreciation of antiquity was not possessed by 
really learned men, even by those who really did possess 
a hearty appreciation of the refinements of Greek and 
Latin idiom.; It is, however, well known that the period 
of erudition quickly passed. It is not to be denied that, 
by the, middle of the seventeenth century, sound learning 
and substantial erudition were everywhere on the decline, 
and that, at the end of the eighteenth, they had fallen 
almost into entire neglect. Accordingly our dramatic 
productions only resembled the master-pieces of Greece 
in name and in the choice of subjects, by certain purely 
external characteristics, by the blind observance of 



286 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

certain maxims, whose origin was not cared for, and 
whose relative importance was not appreciated, and by a 
punctilious deference to the distinction between different 
species of the drama. So far as the real character of the 
works was concerned, as to the characters, sentiments, 
ideas, and colourings introduced, all this was not only 
modern, bat belonged to the existing state of society, — 
not only French, but the French of Paris, or even of 
Versailles. 

The appreciation of national history and monuments 
was hardly in a better position. There was no taste 
for antiquities j no sympathy with the recollections of 
the masses, and the traditions of the country ; there was 
nothing fresh and living in the study of foreign languages 
and literatures. 

And how can we wonder at it ? In mental culture, 
as in all other things, the thread of destiny was in the 
keeping of good society. At the cost of living and 
dying ignorant, it was necessary to be fashionable, first 
in the ruelles, then in the circles and entertainments of 
social fife. Poets, orators, historians, or moralists, 
under the influence of the Court during the reign of 
Louis XIV., who honoured them increasingly with his 
notice, but who always kept them at a proper distance, 
became all-powerful under his successor, so as to be in 
some sort a fourth order in the State, astonishing at 
that time Prance and Europe by the boldness of their 
thoughts, and the ascendancy of their talent 5 they 



SflAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 287 

were not ashamed to affect the lofty airs of nobles of 
high rank, and the petty dignities of coxcombs. Tims 
the writers of France have always ruled the life of men of 
the world ; and have by their intrigues gained successes 
in society, degraded their genius to the limits of its 
narrow and confined atmosphere, and flattered those very 
whims which they professed to ridicule. No country 
has shown itself more fertile in men of great mind than 
ours : no country has, so much as our own, compelled 
these minds, whether they like it or not, to muffle them- 
selves up in the livery of respectability. We may find 
even books of the greatest literary weight which seem, 
like their authors, to have adopted the fineries of the 
time, in order to adorn their exterior. Can we forbear 
smiling, for example, when we see the illustrious 
Montesquieu sometimes decking his great w T ork with 
spangles, and oftener still using epigrams for the purpose 
of giving smartness to it ; and all in order that the leaves 
of his immortal work might enjoy the rare advantage of 
being turned over by flippant spirits, and read aloud at 
ladies' toilets. 

And then, what immeasurable importance was 
attached to light literature ! What an event was the 
publication of a new piece, or of a collection of fugitive 
poems ! What a hit for some election to a chair, or for 
some green-room intrigues ! What a swarm of poet- 
asters of all dimensions ! What a herd of pretentious 
prose-writers on all subjects of interest ! And what a 



288 SHARSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

conviction on the part of all these, that the human race 
ought, laying aside every other occupation, to fix its 
eyes upon them alone ; and that the world had been 
created, five or six thousand years before, merely that 
it might enjoy their small productions, assist in their 
small triumphs, and take part in their small con- 
troversies 1 

The French Revolution cast down the whole of this 
social edifice: and it has, so to speak, rased it to the 
ground. 

Whether this is an evil or a good, each man must 
determine for himself. Certain it is that we owe to 
this revolution the restitution of men to their proper 
ranks, and of things to their appropriate places : this 
it is that has restored the true relation of names and 
things. Henceforth the serious is serious, the frivolous is 
frivolous. Conventionalities have given place to realities. 

The French are equal among themselves \ they have 
•their individual rights to carry out ; and they have duties 
to fulfil towards the State. All honourable professions 
are honoured ; each leads to a worthy end. No longer 
are there legal distinctions which are not derived from 
any diversity of rights and functions • no longer are 
there social distinctions which rest upon no superior 
merit, education, or enlightenment. Ambition is obliged 
to exhibit its titles, and to show itself in open daylight ; 
depraved habits must seek concealment ; crime must 
shelter itself under excuses. 



SHAKSPEARE £SE FRANCE. 289 

In presence of such a new condition of men and things, 
that which was formerly denominated the great world 
must consent that its star should decline. It has finished 
as the monarchy of the great King Louis has finished ; 
it has abdicated as did the Emperor Napoleon, who 
regarded the great King as his predecessor, and neg- 
lected no means of reviving the state that existed in his 
time. We have seen this great world pass away, with 
its fantastic prohibitions and its immoral indulgences, 
with its flimsy proprieties and its scrupulous injunctions, 
with its heroes of good fortune and its jurisdiction of 
old women. Our Court is now only a coterie, if indeed 
it can claim even to be so much as that ; a thousand 
other coteries share the town among them ; each city oft 
any considerable extent has its own coteries; all these 
partial societies are independent of each other, and make 
no foolish pretensions to mtitual domination or remon- 
strance ; every one amuses himself where and how he 
can, and no one finds fault with him ; and, accordingly^ 
no one attempts to extract glory out of his pleasures, 
and to believe himself on this account a great man. 

With a change of manners there has been a_ change 
of tastes. General life has become simple and active, 
laborious and animated. Every man occupies his place, 
has a distinct aim, and aims at that which is worth the 
labour he bestows upon it. Public discussions and a 
free press afford an uninterrupted stream of information 
concerning the greatest human and national interests. 



290 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

The bloodless, but ardent and vehement, struggles of 
the tribune divide, excite, irritate, or enliven every day, 
and carry us onward from fear to hope, from triumph to 
defeat. .qe 

In order to beguile the attention of the public from 
these powerful attractions, literature must present 
something else besides distractions which it no longer 
needs ; and must afford a means of passing the 
time which shall not impose any extra burden. 
Literature must either attract or instruct, — it must 
raise man from himself and from all around him, 
or it must powerfully urge hhn to reflection and 
meditation. The rivalries of poets are no longer any- 
thing to him g academic disputes lie out of his world. 
He has no disposition to engage in the controversy 
which would determine — 

«Des deux Poinsinet lequel fait le mieux les vers ;" 

nor to subsist for a fortnight on that which is worth no 
more than one of Chamfort's epigrams, one of Panard's 
songs, or one of Dorat's heroics. 

Accordingly, for the last twelve or fifteen years, that 
is to say, since the time when Prance first began to 
breathe quietly again after the horrors of anarchy and 
the confusions of conquest, while Ave see all that small, 
affected literature which had its summer of Saint 
Martin under the empire, fall into insignificance and 
disrepute, at the same time that we see genteel 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 2P1 

garbs, Court manners, and beautiful monarchical 
principles abandoned, we also see springing up on all 
sides a taste for whatever is solid and true. Erudition 
is being restored ; there is a more real appreciation of 
the ancients now than there ever was in any former 
time j the knowledge of foreign languages is being- 
extended every day ; voyages are being multiplied ; 
scientific and literary correspondence is being extended 
on all sides j central institutions for intellectual pursuits 
are established in our departments, and are beginning 
to undertake laborious inquiries respecting our national 
antiquities. The Normal School glittered only for a 
season, but it has left permanent memorials of its 
existence ; it has founded, for example, a philosophical 
school, which now occupies a foremost position in 
Europe, which does not swear by the words of any 
master, which does not despise the labours of any of 
its predecessors, which does not blink any of the great 
problems of the world and of humanity ; while it neither 
arrogantly attempts to decide them by a few phrases, 
nor infatuatedly dismisses them with disdain. Side by 
side with this philosophical school, a historical school has 
arisen, in which a union is often effected between that 
vast erudition which allows no details to escape it, and 
that powerful imagination, we would willingly say, that 
half-creative imagination, which knows how to revive 
times and men that have past away, and presents 
them before us glowing with the colours of life and of 

u 2 



292 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

truth. The admirable romances of the most original 
and fertile genius of our period, so riveting ami 
instructive, filled at once with reality and poetic 
invention, with the idiosyncracy of the writer and the 
erudition of the schools, with ability and gracefulness — | 
these romances all testify, by their immense popularity, 
to the not less popularity of that mental disposition 
which they inspire. For, in fact, the delight felt by the 
upper classes, and the admiration expressed for them 
by those of high culture is but a small part of their 
success : they penetrate into counting-houses, they 
descend into shops, answering a universal and imperious 
necessity, and affording it an aliment which entertains 
without completely satisfying it. 

Can we seriously believe that, in this general forward 
movement, the theatre will remain stationary? Can 
it be that the public will bring to the drama other 
ideas, other tastes, other dispositions, than those which 
it carries into all other places and all other tilings ? 

The play must, in these times, address itself to the 
public ; it must interest and excite them ; no longer is 
it designed to relieve the monotony of a couple of hours 
for a select number of languid, lounging, fashionable 
gentlemen, or to supply materials for conversation to 
four or five recognised cliques, and then dozens of 
humbler imitators who may frequent the coffee-houses. 
And this change must inevitably influence, sooner or 
later, the general tone of all dramatic writings. Those 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 293 

immortal beauties — beauties for all times and all places 
— with which our theatre abounds, have not, thank 
heaven ! lost their power over our minds \ but where, 
henceforth, will an audience be found to relish the 
precious metaphysical gallantry, the comic or tragic 
balderdash, the philosophical and sentimental declamation 
which so often disfigure it ? 

Can we really think, for instance, that, if the great 
Comeille were to return to earth, the Romans which lie 
might exhibit woidcl not be somewhat sensible of the 
increased efficiency of our colleges ? Can we believe 
that the illustrious Racine, if he should revisit us, would 
still make Achilles talk like a French chevalier, and put 
madrigals into the mouth of Pyrrhus, Mithridates, or 
Nero ? Can we believe that Voltaire, the brilliant and 
pathetic Voltaire, if he should once again take his place 
among us, would make Zaire profess indifference to all 
matters of religion, and declaim to the savages of America 
on toleration — that he would represent Mahomet 
employing the inflated periods of a Tartuffe, and depict 
Gengis-Khan under the guise of a faded libertine and 
a philosopher disappointed with human greatness? 
No ! Emphatically No ! Everything in its place and 
time ! Voltaire himself was the first to ridicule the heroes 
who preceded him — tender, mild, and discreet ; he 
was the first to hold up to scorn the ridiculous fashion 
of describing — 

" Caton galaut et Brutus dameret." 



& SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

He has attempted tragedies, in which there are no love 
scenes ; he has proposed to restore to us, once for all, 
the Greeks of Greece and the Romans of Rome j and 
the reason why he did not completely succeed was only 
that he was not sufficiently acquainted with them. 
Chenier, in his turn, has thought good to remodel 
Voltaire's " CEdipe." Still Voltaire was the first who 
attempted to appeal to national sentiments and popular 
recollections, and many others since his time have fol- 
lowed in his track. We might trace "back, to a time 
considerably anterior to the beginning of this century, 
a confused sense of the necessity for a reform in the 
theatre, a dim consciousness how much there was in the 
existing state of the theatre that was formal, narrow, 
and contemptible. Grimm's correspondence indicates 
this in every page. More than seventy years ago, Colle 
lampooned the French tragedy in a satiric poem full of 
wit, in which great good sense is contained beneath an 
inexhaustible vein of drollery. And if this want was 
felt thus strongly at this period, what must be the case 
now, when authors, as we have just said, have to do 
no longer with a fictitious but with a real public ? when 
that same public has, for more than forty years, taken 
its part in all the great realities of public as well as 
private life. 

Indeed, we ourselves, who are now occupying the scene, 
have taken part in terrible events \ we have witnessed 
the fall and rise of empires : and how can we be per- 



SHAKSPEAEE IX FRANCE. 295 

suaded that such revolutions are accomplished by some 
six or seven persons, whose two or three uninteresting 
confidants bustle and declaim in a space of fifty square 
feet. ? \Ve have known, and that personally, great men — 
conquerors, statesmen, conspirators— men of flesh and 
blood : powerful by then arms, by their genius, and by 
then eloquence : and, in order to be interested, we must 
be pointed to men equally real, to men who resemble 
them in all respects. 

Still, if our actually existing poets were men of the 
stamp of Racine and Voltaire — if, like those great men, 
they knew how to animate a deplorably withered frame 
by lavishing upon it ah the treasures of sentiment and 
of poetry — if, imitating the noble birds of the days of 
chivalry, they could, like them, although carried on the 
hand, release themselves from time to time from the 
stfaitness of then* position, and soar into the clouds with 
a brilliant and rapid flight, they might win some 
success. But it is not so : and this is exactly the one 
inconvenience of a style which flourished a hundred 
years ago, with which we, the public of to-day, are 
obliged to remain contented and happy. 

"Tragedies have been almost all fashioned after one 
model — all cast so very nearly in the same mode, that 
any one rather experienced in theatrical progression 
might boldly foretell the scheme of each scene as it 
arrived. In the first act there is the narrative of the 
dream or the storm a the second contains the declaration, 



m SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

the tliird the recognition, and so on. The Alexandrines 
march on in stately order, and seem, most of them, to 
belong: to the stock of theatrical properties, as much as 
the decorations and costumes. The personages have 
their parts and movements appropriated and determined 
like the pieces in a game of chess ; so much so, that we 
might call them, for the sake of convenience, by some 
generic name • for example, the King^ the tyrant, the 
Queen, the conspirator, the confidant— almost as Goethe 
has entitled the interlocutors=4n one of his dramas, the 
father, the mother, the sister, and so on. What, for 
instance, does it matter whether the Queen, who has 
killed her husband, be called Semiramis, Clytemnestra, 
Joan of Naples, or Mary Stuart; whether the royal 
legislator is called Minos or Peter the Great; whether 
the usurper is called Artaban, Polyphontes, or Cromwell, 
—when their words and actions, their thoughts and feel- 
ings are always the same, or very nearly so ? when they 
are only so many variations on one necessary plot ? 

It is said that a young poet, whose name we have 
forgotten, having borrowed the subject of his tragedy 
from the history of Spain, and finding himself on this 
account- brought into collision with the censor of the 
press, took it into his head to transport the scene, by two 
strokes of his pen, from Barcelona to Babylon, and to 
carry the events back from the sixteenth century to a 
period somewhere near the time of the deluge ; a plan 
which succeeded to his heart's content, besides that, as 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 297 

Bab j/1 one rhymes to the same words as Barcelo/ie, and is 
composed of exactly the same number of syllables, 
there was but little necessity for changing the most 
vigorous and lofty speeches. We do not guarantee 
the truth of the story, but we do not think it at all 
improbable.iioHi 

Doubtless, this insupportable monotony — the evils 
and puerilities of so much conventional apparatus — the 
disgust, the weariness, the satiety, which it all excites in 
such a public as ours — the despondency at seeing 
nothing true produced for the stage — these causes 
have constantly led the way to all kinds of - innovation. 
Our public is not to be captivated either by system or 
by caprice ; it is no despiser of really excellent 
productions ; it has no disposition to blaspheme the 
denii-gods of past times ; but, like the little girl, it 
says — " My good friend, I have seen the sun so often !" 
Like the grand Concle, it says — " I am quite ready to 
forgive the Abbe d'Aubignac for not having observed 
the rules, but I cannot forgive the rules which have 
made him produce such an execrable piece/' 

In the midst of this perplexity, not knowing what 
saint to invoke, who can deliver them from this— 

Race d'Agaxnemnon qui nefinit jamais, 

ol bm tfiofycFaa oJ £nolam8/ moit ,nyq r <&& 3o gsioite 
these everlasting bores who, if they are hissed down 

to-day in the toga, will re-appear to-morrow hooded 

with a turban;— in this perplexity, certain talented 



298 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

critics make their appearance, writers of the rarest 
ability and of the greatest sagacity, who, with a good- 
natured smile, address the public in some such terms as 
these:— ? <J vjj; saonefc 

" Can you not see what all this weariness under 
which you groan is owing to ? and whence arises this 
monotony which sickens you? In a given time and 
space only a certain number of things are possible ; and 
the more circumscribed the space, the more limited the 
time, the fewer events can be brought before you. 
Names may be changed, costumes may be changed, but 
no further change is possible. And much more must 
this be the case if you multiply arbitrary prescriptions 
and prohibitions ; if you demand, for instance, that the 
individual who weeps shall do nothing but weep, and 
that the laugher shall do nothing but laugh ; if you 
forbid him who has once spoken in verse from speaking 
afterwards in prose, or vice versa, or if you forbid him 
who has once spoken in a verse of twelve syllables from 
ever making use of a verse of rather smaller dimensions ; 
and if you determine it to be beneath the dignity of 
tragedy to employ any colloquial forms of expression. 
Bind a man hand and foot — as you please; put a 
mask on his countenance — very good \ condemn him to 
recite litanies to the Virgin in a style of passive imper- 
turbability — be it so ; but do not then demand of him 
variety in his movements, flexibility in his physiognomy, 
or diversity in his language." 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 299 

And the public must confess that this is very plausible 
reasoning. 

Accordingly, when young poets, encouraged by 
favourable circumstances, advance timidly before the 
people, and humbly beg them to hold them, for a time, 
free from consecrated rules and cruelly rigorous fetters, 
promising, in return for this indulgence, to move them, 
to interest them, to show them living and real events — 
the public answers them, " Make the attempt, we will 
listen attentively." 

This is the secret of that which is transpiring at the 
present day. Are not we then, in France, in danger of 
being betrayed into some rash procedures ? For forty 
years, established usages have been attacked which 
appeared more solid than our theatrical system ; things 
which seemed more sacred even than Aristotle's precepts 
have been looked at with bold defiance. 

If, at this crisis, a great dramatic poet should arise 
amongst us — if this great dramatic poet would take part 
with the innovators, all difficulties would very soon be 
overcome. But unfortunately we have no such drama- 
tist; as far as talent is concerned, the authors of the 
new school have not hitherto had a very decided 
advantage over their brethren of the old school. Their 
works certainly possess more interest, more movement, 
more variety \ but these merits belong to the school to 
which they have attached themselves, and this is the 
reason why their works have drawn crowds while the 



300 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

productions of their more old-fashioned brethren are 
abandoned. But their works are indicative rather of 
reminiscence than of invention ; more of an honest dispo- 
sition to create than of a creative genius. The execution 
betrays absence of power and groping after effect, rather 
than native vigour and genuine originality. The blame 
rests with the individuals ; and this is the reason why 
the public is as yet undecided which of the two opposed 
systems it shall finally adopt, and shows itself much 
more disposed to thank them for their efforts than to 
award them the palm of triumph. 

How long, then, is this feeble flight of dramatic 
talent, this sterility of true genius, with which, to our 
great regret, the new school — that school which has* 
hardly existed more than four or five years — -has been 
stricken: how long is this to last? The answer to 
such a question must remain unknown to man, and must 
be left to Providence ; our fervent wish, both for the 
credit of art and the honour of our country, is, that it 
may not be delayed very long. Meanwhile, is it graceful 
and, above all, is it just, for the partisans of the old 
system in literature to exult over this fact, as they 
too often do ? Are they reasonable in asking us, with an 
air of raillery, what master-pieces the new theatrical 
system can boast of ? Have they any right to say 
to the critics who have expounded and displayed it, 
" You know not whereof you are speaking ; and as 
a proof of this, nothing that has been done under 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 301 

your auspices at all corresponds to your magnificent 
promises ?" 

We might even agree with them ; for if, by way of 
reprisal, we should afterwards ask, concerning Aristotle's 
Poetics, what tragedies of worth it succeeded in in- 
spiring in Greece ;— concerning Horace's Ars Poetica, 
what illustrious monuments of its truthfulness remain 
from the theatre of the Latins j — concerning La Harpe's 
Cours de Litterature, what master-pieces we may thank 
it for ? — the answer would not be very much to their 
advantage. 

Nature alone creates great poets : by her sole agency 
the world has been gifted, at long intervals, with a 
Sophocles, a Shakspeare, a Racine, a Moliere ; and after 
each such effort, the repose is long and protracted. 
No human endeavours can be so successful as to supply 
the lack of that which nature alone can give ; and any 
theory for the creation of great men — any pompous 
megalanthropogenesy — is an insane imposition, either in 
literature or anywhere else. We will even go further ; 
what is true of genius is equally true of talent : however 
little of it may exist, yet in whatever degree it is to 
be found, nature alone has all the honour. Criticism 
does for it nothing more than it does for every one 
else ; it has no formula of talent ready made ; it has 
no receipts for the manufacture of good tragedies and 
amusing comedies. 

Nothing is, in fact, more common than thus to 



302 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

misapprehend the design and nature of certain 
things. 

When the Organon of the Stagyrite philosopher was 
re- discovered in the Middle Ages, those who first studied 
it thought they had met with a kind of enchantment, 
and certainly they had good reason for so thinking \ 
for this Organon, this admirable logical system, is one of 
the most wonderful monuments of the greatness and 
power of the human mind that exists. But immediately 
they started to the conclusion that the aim of logic was 
to teach men reasoning, and that reasoning was, if not 
the only, yet certainly the principal, means of attaining 
truth — that whosoever should thoroughly master the 
syllogism could never again be deceived in anything, 
and would have reached the utmost boundaries of human 
knowledge. This was a great mistake ; no one can 
estimate the follies and sophistries, the strifes and 
subtleties, which this has cost us. Logic teaches man 
nothing which he could not already do alone, and 
without its assistance; the syllogistic procedure is the 
natural and spontaneous method \ it need not be 
formally learnt in order to its being employed. There 
are, besides, other conditions for good reasoniDg — a 
clear vision and an adequate conception of the subject, a 
just regard to all the conditions implied in the problem 
to be solved, and the faculty of retaining them firmly 
during the whole course of the deduction. And these 
things are all given by nature ; logic cannot impart the 



SHAKSPEARE IX FRANCE. 303 

secret of acquiring them. Must we, then, on the other 
hand, conclude, as some philosophers have concluded, 
that logic is good for nothing ? By no means \ this 
would be to rush blindly to the opposite extreme. The 
design of logic is not to teach men to reason, but to 
teach them how they actually do reason ; it is a branch 
of mental philosophy ; it discloses to us the nature of 
one of our most remarkable mental processes ; it 
explains to us its laws, its action, its mechanism ; it 
reveals the human mind to itself. He who studies it 
properly will always study it advantageously; he will 
rise from this study with a more enlightened and 
practised, a stronger and more dexterous, mental organ, 
— more fitted, in one word, for all things, not even 
excepting reasoning itself. For never is it in any respect 
fruitless to develop human intelligence, and to enlarge 
and purify the judgment. 

The same must be said of criticism. It also is a 
branch of mental philosophy. It also enlightens the 
mind with regard to its own operations, and shows it in 
reflection the method of its own activity \ but it neither 
confines it within the limits of the schools, nor subjects 
it to a dwarfing and lasting pupillage. 

The Beautiful exists ; it exists in the external world 
and in the soul of man, in the phenomena of nature and 
in the events in winch humanity displays itself. Some- 
times it is manifested entirely in these regions \ but 
oftener it gives only a glimpse and a hint of its presence. 



304 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

Genius seizes it and makes it its own possession ; it 
receives the impression, and then gives it out in a purer 
and more vivid state than that in which it first appeared ; 
it is surprised, by the vision, and it surprises in its turn 
by the presentation of it. Thus genius acts under the 
influence of an inspiration ; unconsciously, yet most 
spontaneously, it avails itself of the processes of art. 
The eagle flies because it is an eagle; the stag bounds 
because it is a stag. 

What, then, is the province of criticism ? Its position 
is that of a mediator between the masterpieces of art 
and the minds which are desirous of appreciating them ; 
between the man of talent and the readers whom he 
addresses ; sometimes between him and the man of 
genius. Whether we be small or great, gifted with 
insight or not, it initiates us into the secret of these 
marvellous beauties ; it displays before us their delicate 
processes, their hidden relations, their mystic laws. 
This is its work, neither more nor less. 

But now is the time for the approach of ratiocinative 
mediocrity; it advances with lofty assumption, bearing 
the staff of office, availing itself of these expositions in 
order to erect, by means of them, a clumsy structure of 
exact formulas, — burlesquing these delicate and cautious 
explanations by resolving them into pedantic precepts, 
and appealing to lesser spirits to experiment upon their 
select list of instructions, practical precepts, and petty 
routines. At its bidding, the labourers set to work. 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 305 

Equipped with their rule and compass, they draw 
the lines and measure out the compartments, they 
dissect most "methodically the mighty productions of 
men of genius, plundering on the right hand and on 
the left, pillaging from one a posture, from another a 
strike of sentiment, from a thud an idea, from a 
fourth a poetic touch, and, readjusting all these bits 
according to the best of then ability, they at length 
produce a sorry, complicated piece of mosaic, dressed 
in truly harlequin gear. Hence arises, in all languages 
which have received a small amount of culture, a deluge 
of bastard productions, which are neither good nor 
bad, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither interesting nor 
ridiculous, and which have no other fault than the 
irremediable one of corresponding to nothing whatever 
that exists either in man or nature, neither in the 
mind of the would-be poet nor in that of his unfor- 
tunate reader. Hence, for example, the amusement 
which so many poets of the last century gave them- 
selves, of composing tens of thousands of pastoral 
verses, which gave no indication that, during the whole 
period of their existence, they had so much as cast a 
glance upon any tree in the Tuileries, or watched the 
course of any river in the Gobelins. Hence arose, in a 
word, all that rendered literature dull, and poetry 
fantastic. 

Criticism that is worthy of the name — true criticism, 
indeed— has nothing to do with this foolish attempt to 



306 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

construct the agreeable and the beautiful into a fabric. 
Its aim is not to teach how beautiful things may be 
made, but to exhibit before all eyes, and help all minds 
to understand, the lustre of those things which are 
beautiful. Its aim is to increase the number of lofty 
and refined spirits — minds of liberality and sagacity, of 
delicacy and enlightenment; it is to prepare for men 
of genius and of talent, whenever nature may please to 
inspire such, a public worthy of receiving them, whose 
admiration may animate them, and whose severe taste 
may calm and moderate their too exuberant activity. 

This being granted, may we say that the new 
criticism, that criticism to which has been imputed, 
whether advisedly or not — or rather, we would question 
whether or not it is fitting to impute to tins criticism 
alone and entirely — the revolution which has been 
declared in our theatre : may we say that this criticism 
has entirely failed in its object ? If it has not, by one 
stroke of any magic wand, transformed men of moderate 
talent into great poets, may it not have smoothed the 
way before great poets who may yet arise ? If it has 
not caused beautiful works of art to spring forth from 
the bosom of the earth, may it not have opened many 
eyes, and unstopped many deafened ears ? May it not, 
to a certain extent, have so prepared the way for great 
works, if ever heaven shall grant them to us, that they 
may, on their arrival, find an audience disposed to 
appreciate them, and qualified to estimate them ? 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 307 

Far are we from thinking that, in this respect, its 
labours have been entirely unavailing. On the contrary, 
we are much more disposed to suspect that, in more 
than one relation, and we will by no means limit 
ourselves to unimportant relations, the new criticism has 
succeeded beyond its expectations, and perhaps even 
beyond its desires ; we are disposed to suspect that it 
has made something which is of greater value than itself 
— -that it has involuntarily disencumbered us of more 
shackles than it was itself aware of, of more even than it 
had estimated. What is, in fact, the error of criticism in 
general — we mean of all criticism that has any weight 
(the smaller species are not worth our notice) — a kind 
of error from which the new criticism is not exempt, 
to any great extent ? 

It is, as it seems to us, a certain absence of mental 
liberty when absorbed in the contemplation of things 
which the mind either approves or condemns ; a certain 
impulsive, passionate, intolerant disposition, which 
prevents it from reproving with the severity of justice 
anything faulty in that which it admires, and of 
admiring with generous self-abandonment whatever may 
be excellent in the productions which it condemns. 

The ancients, for example, are admired everywhere, — ■ 
and, unquestionably, they are entitled to be so i they are 
admired in France, in Germany, in England ; they are 
admired from very different motives, sometimes from 
motives contradictory to one another, and certainly this 

x2 



308 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

admiration rests upon very different principles in 
different cases. But, in truth, where have they as yet 
been judged ? where have they been appreciated with- 
out conventional enthusiasm, without an unquestioning 
devotion? Will not the man who shall first venture 
openly to expose their defects, whatever respect he may 
retain for them, stand a chance of being brow-beaten 
and abused as a Barbarian and a Goth ? We ourselves, 
who dare to hint such an insinuation — what a storm 
of wrath may possibly be preparing to burst over 
our head ? 

The great masters of our language have been very 
ably appreciated, analysed, and commented upon by La 
Harpe — for La Harpe was no vulgar critic — but, on 
the one hand, he would not have deemed that sufficient 
homage had been shown to Racine and Voltaire, had 
he not fastened Shakspeare by the heels to their 
triumphal car, and dragged him along in the mud ; and, 
on the other hand, he cannot venture, except at rare 
intervals, and with faltering accents, to expose any 
trifling imperfection in the objects of his adoration ; the 
enormous defects of our drama do not at all shock him ; 
he does not even seem to have perceived them. 

On the other hand, let us take, as representative of the 
new criticism, the man who is undeniably its glory and 
ornament — the man who, by the extent and variety of 
his knowledge, by the profundity and originality of his 
views, by the lively appreciation of the beautiful which 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 309 

ever animates him, and, by that ingenious sagacity which 
never forsakes him, has had the greatest influence on the 
ideas and opinions of his contemporaries — Wilhelm 
Schlegel. He will be found to exhibit the obverse side 
of the medal. 

He admires Shakspeare most thoroughly; he has 
translated him with all the fondness of a pupil for a 
master • he has also a passionate admiration for Calderon 
and the Spanish drama. But, in order to balance his 
excesses in these directions, he habitually judges our 
drama with something more than rigour; to the admirable 
unaffectedness and comic vein of Moliere he is entirely 
insensible ; he deprecates the " Phedre " of Racine as 
much inferior to the " Phoedra" of Euripides ; to many 
of our merits he frequently grants neither sympathy nor 
justice ; to our most venial defects he is mercilessly 
severe. He admires Shakspeare, and, in his enthusiasm, 
not only is Shakspeare perfect in all respects, but all that 
appertains, either immediately or more remotely, to 
Shakspeare, participates in the perfection of this ideal. 

According to his judgment, the period in which 
Shakspeare flourished was not only a great and 
remarkable period, but a period of taste and politeness ; 
it was not only learned, but refined ; urbanity, grace, 
and refined pleasantry, were its most prominent and 
characteristic features. 

Shakspeare himself is not only a great poet, but a 
profound philosopher, whose thoughts have sounded, 



310 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

down to their lowest depths, all 'the mysteries of the 
world, and all the intricacies of the human soul. Not 
only are his pieces in the highest degree effective, but 
they are composed with a marvellous and irreproachable 
art; everything, whether it be great or small, finds its 
proper place and its just estimate in his writings. The 
gross obscenities with which he abounds, are bursts of 
native humour ; the puns, quips, and quibbles, which 
are to be met with at every step, even in the most 
pathetic passages, are sallies of the most irreproachable 
taste ; his anachronisms have their merits • his errors in 
geography, in history, in the portraiture of men and 
manners, all have their explanations. 

The same idolatry, the same superstitious ardour, is 
shown for the Spanish drama. 

It must be admitted that those of our French critics 
who were the first to adopt the doctrines of Sehlegel, have 
taken care not to go quite so far as he. They were 
sensible of his exaggerations. They have maintained 
their former admiration for Racine side by side with 
their more recent admiration for Shakspeare ; and they 
have persisted in throwing the blame of the mistakes of 
Shakspeare himself upon the times in which he lived, and 
upon the rare genius with which heaven endowed him. 

But we must confess, also, that this wisdom has been 
neither general nor of long duration. To see how the 
leaders of our modern school express themselves when 
speaking of the English and the Germans — of Schiller, 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 311 

of Shakspeare, and of Goethe — we may easily perceive 
that they occupy, with reference to these writers, the 
same mental posture which La Harpe occupied with 
reference to Racine or Voltaire ; that while they are 
quite willing to express censure on a point of trifling 
importance, they do so on the implied condition that 
nothing of a serious or fundamental character shall be 
questioned by them. 

For example, in the attempt to present " Othello " in 
its complete form for the Theatre Francais (an attempt 
which, moreover, we will applaud from the very bottom 
of our heart), in this attempt to reproduce " Othello," 
verse by verse, without any abridgment, except of a part 
which the police would not have suffered to pass — 
the part of a girl of vicious life, a part besides which is 
quite useless, and a crowd of indecent equivoques and 
disgusting obscenities — who could be persuaded to see 
in all this a design to offer to the public, not a spectacle, 
interesting on account of its novelty, or curious because 
of the period to which it carries us back, but an accom- 
plished model of art — a work perfect in all its features ? 

Well ! we will venture to assert that the time for 
these exaggerations has already passed in France ; we 
will venture to predict that there is in the general good 
sense of the people — a good sense which the controversies 
that have been going on for the last fifteen or twenty 
years have developed and prepared- — something which 
will prove an invincible obstacle to these adorations of 



312 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

individuals, and will prevent them from ever so gaining 
ground as to become common opinions and recognised 
doctrines. We have with some trouble emancipated our- 
selves from one extreme, — we will not allow ourselves to 
run heedlessly into its opposite. We have disencumbered 
ourselves from some thousands of small prejudices, — -we 
will not allow ourselves to be swathed in a host of 
prejudices of another kind. 

Every time that the attempt which has just been made 
at the Theatre Erancais shall be renewed (and we hope 
it may be often renewed— this will be a much more 
worthy thing than the presentation before us of new and 
mediocre pieces), the problem which has already been 
once offered will be repeated — whether the public will 
consent to abandon the freedom of its judgment in 
favour of anything, by whatever sanctions it may be 
supported — whether many of the things which it is 
asked to admire, it will be contented only to tolerate — 
whether other things similarly presented, it will condemn 
— whether others will be received with admiration, but 
from new motives, of a more immediate and personal 
character — whether, so far at least as impartiality is con- 
cerned, it will show itself to be superior to its leaders — 
and whether it will regard what is presented to it from a 
point of view more elevated than theirs. 

We say that this has already been once realised ; and 
we say so, not only because the mass of the public 
refused to take a decided stand either with the detractors 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 313 

of Shakspeare or with his enthusiastic admirers — this 
neutrality was rather owing, as we have already 
explained, to the unsettled state of its ideas and doctrines, 
than to the fear lest they should be compromised — but 
because the impression which the piece made, in its 
general effect and in its details, appeared to us to involve a 
true judgment, an unconscious, not a premeditated judg- 
ment, which could only be read on the countenances of 
the audience, a judgment which did not always square 
(far from it) with those ideas which the most accredited 
critics endeavour to give us on the English work, but 
which was more original, and, in our judgment, more 
worthy of respect than theirs. 

The drama in question is divided into two nearly 
equal parts ; in the first part, which comprises the first 
two acts and some scenes of the third, the comic element 
is' most conspicuous ; the tragic, or to speak more exactly, 
the dignified, the serious, element only appears once for 
a brief space ; in the second part, on the contrary, the 
tragic element predominates, the comic only appears in 
transient flashes. 

This distinction is made with such precision in the 
original, that, in general, the comic part is written in 
prose, while the tragic part is written almost uniformly 
in verse ; a kind of mixture which Shakspeare ordinarily 
used with most marvellous dexterity, but which the French 
translator has not ventured to introduce upon our stage. 

The comic part appeared to be long and rather over- 



314 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

drawn % the general effect which it produced was a feeling 
of disapprobation and impatience. 

To what is this to be attributed ? Was it merely the 
effect of the admixture of comedy and tragedy ? a feeling 
of the incompatibility of these equally simultaneous im- 
pressions ? Doubtless the majority of the audience would 
thus have interpreted what they felt. But suppose the 
comic part had been of a different character — that it 
had been better managed, disposed more judiciously, 
distributed according to a juster proportion — would the 
same effect have been produced ? There was nothing to 
indicate that it would ; and the favour with which some 
salient points were received, and the universal laughter 
which they excited, may even induce a contrary opinion. 

The idea of allotting an equal, or nearly an equal 
share of attention to two opposite elements, appears to 
us a violation of due proportions, and to rest upon a false 
principle. We are not usually sticklers for the unities ; 
still, however, we believe that a certain fundamental unity 
is, in every case, a condition under which the beautiful 
is manifested here below. The effect, the legitimate 
effect of the beautiful, whatever it may be, is to raise the 
soul above itself, to transport it, by a kind of magic 
enchantment, into a sphere where all its transitory 
interests disappear, and to abolish, for a time, the senti- 
ment of its individuality. Now the soul of man, as it is 
at present constituted, cannot entirely abandon itself; it 
cannot forget itself, and lose itself, either in simultaneous, 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 315 

or in two successive, impressions of a precisely opposite 
character and of equal force. To attempt this, is to do 
violence to its constitution. 

If the subject of "Othello" had been perfectly un- 
known to the public, if the public could have freely 
allowed itself to be carried unresistingly along with 
the constant mysteriousness that is connected with 
Roderigo, the surprise and the wrath of Brabantio, the 
drunkenness of Cassio, and the ill-natured jokes of the 
buffoon, uttered in a strain of mere pleasantry, it would 
from the first have ascended to the proper elevation of 
gladness and hilarity ; but the shock could not but be 
unpleasant to them when they were so soon to pass 
abruptly from this gay and playful disposition to the 
terrible pathos of the gigantic scenes of jealousy which 
terminate the third act. 

But as they, on the contrary, had entered the theatre 
with their expectations directed entirely to those scenes 
of jealousy, and to other scenes, not less terrible, which 
were to grow out of these, as they were anxiously 
looking forward to the catastrophe, two or more acts full 
of sarcasms, facetiae, and jokes, appeared to the public a 
severe trial, a somewhat grim preparation ; they saw in 
it something not merely contrary, but opposed and 
shocking to their tastes, something which overshot 
the mark, whatever that mark may be. 

Were they wrong ? Was this mere prejudice ? We, 
for our part, can hardly think so. 



316 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE, 

The mixture of comedy and tragedy is not, or 
certainly ought not to be, a purely arbitrary thing. 
The two are not brought together merely for the sake of 
the union. Opposition, antithesis, in works of art, is 
not in itself a merit, has no intrinsic value. They are 
brought together when a certain kind of beauty results 
naturally from their juxtaposition \ they are united 
because, in the vicinity of those events which change 
and reverse an entire life, there are the world, society, and 
the crowd of indifferent egotists who move on without 
caring for these events, whose movements are neither 
disturbed nor disarranged by them, who pursue their 
individual interests, ruled by their habits, abandoned to 
selfishness \ and because the contrast between situations 
of such an opposite character, and sentiments so unlike 
to one another, after it has compelled us to smile, opens 
to us a point of view from which human life is seen 
shaded with a fanciful and melancholy tinge. Comedy and 
tragedy are blended, because a flash of unpremeditated 
gaiety sometimes crosses the minds of those who are 
corroded by remorse, or stricken by despair, and 
restores them for an instant to a state which is lost to 
them— irremediably and hopelessly lost — leaving them 
immediately afterwards, as a ray of light which only 
glittered for a moment to exhibit more clearly the depth 
of the abyss \ — 

Nessun maggior dolore 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miseria. 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 317 

The two are blended, because the same fact often 
presents varying aspects, and the waning light, which 
exhibits the one, brings the other into bolder relief. 
Lastly, they are blended, because an accidental link is 
often found to connect a terrible misfortune with a 
fantastic incident — some singular relation which 
involuntarily and unexpectedly takes hold upon us, and 
which our spirit not unwillingly grasps as if to find 
some kind of unbending to regain its equilibrium and 
recover breath. 

Never should the contrast be allowed unless under 
the condition that the dominant impression, which is 
chiefly to be regarded, should be developed and not 
destroyed, should not be lost sight of, but rendered 
more lasting and profound. No one knew this better 
than Shakspeare, no one has illustrated it by more 
numerous and beautiful examples. But we confess we 
cannot find them in " Othello." In this play the comic 
element is purely arbitrary ; it is, in some sort, appended 
to the tragic, while there is no intimate relation between 
the one and the other, no common aim, no alliance to 
be ratified by the deep experiences of the soul. 

Let Roderigo be eliminated from the piece — a genuine 
melodramatic simpleton, who only appears that he may 
serve as a butt to Iago, to be beduped and befooled by 
him ; you can do so ; what Roderigo does might be 
done quite as well by any one else ; no one, Iago 
excepted, would know or care for his absence. Let 



318 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

Brabantio, the firm and prudent senator, full of ability 
and self-possession, dignified and respected, be true to 
his* proper character; let him not be transformed, 
during two whole scenes, merely to suit the whim of the 
author, into a Geronte or a Sganarelle. Let Cassio 
fall into disgrace with his general from some more 
worthy motive than that supplied by taking a glass of 
wine at an unseasonable time, which would also be much 
more in keeping both with his good qualities, and with 
the defects which are attributed to him. Lastly, erase 
entirely the part of the Clown, a part so false, that the 
French imitator, though he has in general adhered most 
conscientiously to the original, did not think himself 
bound to preserve it ; all that is comic in the piece will 
have disappeared, it will have disappeared without being 
observed at all by any of the essential characters, with- 
out producing any chasms in the representation of the 
principal positions ; it may be detached, as two objects 
are separated which have nothing in common but the 
circumstance of their both being in the same vessel. 

This is assuredly quite sufficient to explain the im- 
pression produced upon the spectators ; they might, 
without any injustice, have shown a greater degree of 
severity, and doubtless they would have done so if they 
had had to express themselves upon the work as one 
entirely unknown to them. Eut they were placed, 
as we have already said, in a more rational point of 
view than that occupied by the French translator; 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 319 

they had come, not to behold a marvel, but to study, 
with a true and living sympathy, an ancient and 
renowned work. They were unpleasantly surprised at 
first, but they showed patience, and gave due credit. 
One circumstance, we think, proves most convincingly 
the freedom of their minds and the docility of their 
attention, the fact that this deluge of tiresome plea- 
santries did not at all injure the effect of the three 
beautiful scenes in the first act — the scene in which 
Othello calmly meets the violent passion of Desdemona's 
father — that in which he explains to the Senate how he 
managed to conquer the young girl's heart — and that in 
which Desdemona herself appears, and demands to be 
permitted to follow the Moor, as her lord and master, to 
Cyprus. 

The effect of Othello's narration was irresistible. 
This portion of the play is translated into all languages 
— its beauty is perfectly entrancing, its originality is 
unequalled. Even La Harpe could not refuse to it the 
tribute of his admiration. But, perhaps, the scene 
which precedes, and that which follows, are even still 
more adapted to exhibit Shakspeare in all his greatness. 
How wonderful a painter of human nature was this man ! 
How true is it that he has received from on high some- 
thing of that creative power which, by breathing on a 
little dust, can transform it into a creature of life and 
immortality ! 

In the interview with Brabantio, Othello only utters 



320 SHAKSPEARE IN. FRANCE. 

some fifteen lines ; before the Senate, Desdemona only 
about thirty ; and yet already, both Othello and 
Desdemona stand before us as complete characters : 
there they both are, showing themselves without any 
constraint, in all the gracefulness and singularity of 
their characters, in all their native and imperishable indi- 
viduality. Suppress the rest of the piece, you can never 
efface Desdemona and Othello from your memory ; place 
them, if you please, in another order of circumstances, 
use your utmost, but do not think you can obliterate 
them ; we know them, and we know beforehand what 
they must do and say. 

And yet what complexities, what contrasts, w' 
delicate shades, belong to these characters ! 

In Othello, there are two individualities : in the first 
place there is the savage, who has for a long time 
remained alone ; who has for a long time lived the life 
of a brute, and who abandons himself, without even the 
smallest indication of an internal struggle, to the first 
effervescence of passion which crosses his soul ; a man 
who is yet furnished with that interior goodness, that 
native generosity which the instinct of our poetic fictions 
has been pleased to attribute to the lion, the monarch 
of the deserts. In the second place, there is the civilised 
man, who has become such by war, and by war alone, 
by the greatness of his courage, by that self-possession 
which is educated and disciplined by constant, habitual, 
and regular familiarity with danger. In the amenities 



~w(\?.\ 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 321 

of a peaceful life the civilised man is naturally and 
spontaneously uppermost ; Othello is calm, confident in 
the superiority of his character, in the haughtiness of his 
spirit, in the magnitude of his services ; but he obeys 
the first signal, he marches at the first word of command 
— his discipline is that of the soldier, his moderation 
is that of the tamed animal: He has captivated Desde- 
mona' s young heart by an unexpected turn of fortune, 
the very possibility of which belongs solely to the region 
of poetry, the reality of which is inconceivable by 
vulgar minds : as Iago says, '" What delight shall she 
have to look on the devil ? " But this stroke of fortune 
appeared quite simple to him, an unreflecting and 
unsuspicious being ; it has not cost him one step, not one 
moment of disquietude ; he has not stopped to think of 
his age, his appearance, or the rudeness of his manners. 
He possesses Desdemona as his property, as he possesses 
his good sword, not imagining that his claims to her can 
be disputed in any other way than by brute force. He 
is therefore at rest. If however he gives himself up to 
love, love is yet only an accident of his existence ; war 
is his life, his element, the stage on which his character 
really acts ; love can only thwart his true destiny * 
meanwhile he neither knows how to rule it, nor how 
thoroughly to receive its influence. 

Desdemona, on the other hand, is the most perfect 
ideal, the purest type of woman, — of woman as she is in 
herself, a being inferior and yet divine, subordinate by 



322 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

the order of human life, free before her choice is made, 
but the slave of her choice when once she has made it. 
She is composed of modesty, tenderness, and submission. 
Her modesty is unsullied, her tenderness is unbounded, 
her submission is imlimited and absolute. That which 
distinguishes her among all other women is that she 
does not so much possess these qualities, as they possess 
and absorb her. In her soul there is no place for 
anything else, whether it be indifferent, or bad, or even 
good; there is no room for other inclinations, other 
feelings or even other duties. She has given herself 
up entirely, body and soul, thought and will, hope and 
memory. Nothing remains in her nature which she can 
appropriate to anything else whatever. She forsakes 
her father, she deceives him, she braves him, as far as 
she can brave anything, — his exasperated feelings, his 
exterior harshness, — but without any exhibition of either 
hesitation or repentance. The very appearance of the 
object of her choice may convince us how chaste are 
her thoughts. There is not the least allusion, either 
as to the kind of life that awaits her, nor as to the 
possible price which she may one clay pay for such 
affection ; from the first she is resigned — resigned to all 
— certain of what was to be her lot in the world, — 
certain that, whatever may arrive, she will never cast 
back one look of regret — that she will never have to 
hesitate between two courses. 

And in order that we may be put in possession of all 



SHAKSPEAEE IX HKfcKHB. 323 

this, what was required from Shakspeare ? Four strokes 
of his pen complete the work. See, for example, how 
he concludes the scene. 

The Moor has been dragged from the very steps of 
the altar by Brabantio \ since the moment of their 
union he has hardly been able to exchange two words 
with the object of his best love. The simple and 
pathetic recital of their passion has disarmed all hearts 
and drawn tears from every eye. Desdemona has just 
resisted the authority of her father with mildness and 
moderation, but with invincible firmness. The Duke 
confirms their happiness — the father delivers his 
daughter up to the Moor ; all the Senators surround 
them and wish them joy 5 Desdemona is allowed to 
rejoin her husband at Cyprus as soon as he shall be 
settled there. The Duke then says to the old soldier — 

- The affair cries-haste! 
And speed must answer it. You must hence to-night,'" 

The only words which escape Desdemona are — - 

" To-night, my lord ? " 
3 

Othello's answer is — 

" With all my heart." 

He has heard the sound of the trumpet, and all other 
thoughts are already far away. Desdemona, the tender, 
loving girl, so resolute when in the presence of her 
father — Desdemona, who has scarcely entered into the 
bonds of wedlock, casts down her eyes, and follows 

Y 2 



timidly after her husband without uttering one word, 
without directing to him one significant look, without 
framing any reproach in her heart, 

Othello's narrative has been rapturously applauded — 
as was most natural: but the united impression of the 
three scenes must obtain, we think, an admiration of an 
entirely different kind. Imagine a man who has lived 
for a long time in rooms lighted only by wax candles, 
chandeliers, or coloured glasses, who has only breathed 
in the faint, suffocating atmosphere of drawing-rooms, 
who has seen only the cascades at the opera, calico 
mountains, and garlands of artificial flowers : imagine 
such a man suddenly transported, one magnificent July 
morning, to a region where he could breathe the purest 
air, under the tranquil and graceful chesnut trees which 
fringe the waters of Interlachen, and within view of 
the majestic glaciers of the Oberland, and you will have 
a pretty accurate idea of the moral position of one 
accustomed to . the dramatic representations winch 
formerly occupied pur stage, when he unexpectedly finds 
himself witnessing these so simple, grand, and natural 

beauties. gVi^ggiurfS tel M gniwaiv \o ebom too si 
A second point with respect to which the involuntary 
feeling of the French public has found itself at issue 
with Shakspeare's admirers, is the character of Iago^ 
This character, which is the concealed agent producing 
the catastrophe of the piece, is greatly celebrated in 
England and elsewhere ; all the critics, without 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. M 

exception, English, German, or French, are unwearying 
in their eulogies upon it. When acted, it appeared to us 
that this character was generally disapproved, and that 
in a very marked way, which kept on increasing with 
every act • so much so, that had it not been played with 
great firmness and determination, it would certainly 
have received some decided rebuff. Why was this? 

It was rather curious, at the end of every act, to hear 
each spectator give the reason of his repugnance, the 
cause of his aversion. One thought Iaa:o too immoral • 
another, on the contrary, thought he was not a suf- 
ficiently accomplished hypocrite ; he should not boast so 
offensively of his wickedness, said a third censor; 
while a fourth was revolted at seeing him perpetrate his 
crimes with so much pleasantry. And so on. 

In our judgment the part was disapproved because it 
is in itself bad ; because it is, we do not say inconsistent 
(for what is more natural to man than inconsistency ?) 
but incoherent, because the parts of which it is composed 
do not naturally associate ; and because, in regard to it, 
we are uncertain which idea to adopt. Such, at least, 
is our mode of viewing it. Let Shakspeare's devotees 
anathematise us, if they feel disposed. 

What really is la go ? Is he the Evil Spirit, or at 
least his representative on earth? Is Othello right when 
he looks down to his feet to see whether they are not 
cloven? Is he a being who can do evil from the mere 
love of it, and who deliberately breathes a poisonous 



32tf SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

atmosphere into the union of Othello and Desdemona, 
solely because Desdemona is a being of angelic purity, 
and Othello is a loyal, brave, and generous man. 

If so, why ascribe to lago any human and interested 
motives? Why are we pointed to his low cupidity, 
the resentment which he feels for an injury done to his 
honour, his envy of a position more elevated than his 
own ? Why must we see him plundering poor Roderigo, 
as Scapin or Sbrigani jiggle the purse out of the pocket 
of some imbecile? The introduction of these passions 
destroy everything that is fantastic in the part. The 
devil has neither humour nor honour ; he has neither 
rancour, nor rage, nor covetousness; he is a disinterested 
person ; he does evil because it is evil, and because he is 
the Evil One. 

Iago, on the other hand, is, as he himself boasts, the 
type of an Egotist, — a man who is perfected in the art 
of self-love, — a being who can arrange his desires in 
hierarchical subordination, according to the degree of 
their importance, and then so plan his actions as that 
they shall invariably turn out to his infinite satisfaction, 
whatever may be the consequences to other people, 
without scrupulosity, without remorse, and also without 
allowing himself to be diverted from his aim by any 
temptation of an inferior order. 

Why, then, does he pursue, at the same time, three 
or four different ends, which are to him of very unequal 
importance? Why does he undertake successively 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 327 

twenty different projects which he abandons one after 
the other? Why especially does he, on every occasion, 
lavish his villainy with a hundred times greater prodi- 
gality than is called for by the circumstances ? Jonathan 
Wild the Great, notorious in the lists of rascality, was 
much more expert when he said : — " Be chary with your 
crimes ; they are far too good things to be squandered 
away in pure waste4 air j q m[d a 

Moreover, how are we to reconcile the different ideas 
which are given us of this character ? He is first repre- 
sented to us as an intrepid, intelligent soldier, worthy of 
all the confidence of Othello and the Senate, who might 
judiciously have been promoted to a high rank ; and 
then lie is exhibited before us as a sharper of the first 
quality, and as a miserable ruffian. 

He has a profound contempt for the human race, and, 
in the human race, he has a profound contempt for 
women ; he shrugs his shoulders at the bare suggestion 
of the possibility of female honour. His own wife, espe- 
cially, is an insupportable burden to him. His only aim 
in the world is fortune — his enjoyments are palpable 
and material, — and yet we are required to see, in the 
mere suspicion of an old intrigue between his wife and 
Othello, a force powerfully acting upon and moving 
nis soul . onaiiii us lo noiisJi 

He is presented as the most artful villain that ever 
existed, and yet all his projects are so ill-contrived, so 
clumsy, so destitute of foresight, that not one of them 



328 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

succeeds— neither was it possible that they could be 
successful^xggisO oJ— S nxoifw oJ— <iwioq lad 

He is presented as an impostor of fearful penetration, 
capable of impenetrable dissimulation ; and yet the traps 
that he sets are so palpable that, although he has to do 
with an idiot, in comparison with whom any pig-headed 
imbecile would be a marvel of perspicacity, every one 
possessed of the smallest relic of .sense, would not allow 
himself to be decoyed by them for the space of two 
niinutesvfxfli iftiw onghtai 8 5 oi8BbO lo gisoqg og^I ba& 

This, forsooth! is his scheme! Desdemona has 
espoused Othello ; she has chosen him, as he is, out of 
a thousand others more worthy of her ; she has left all 
for him ; to all appearance she loves him ; Iago himself 
does not doubt it ; hardly have they received the nuptial 
benediction before they are separated; Othello sets out 
with Cassio, — observe, with Cassio ; Desdemona also 
departs for Cyprus ; by accident the two parties, who 
had left Venice at different times, arrive in Cyprus the 
same day, within half an hour of one another. To the 
knowledge and in the sight of all, Othello included, 
Cassio, the companion of his voyage, has not been able 
to speak to Desdemona more than ten minutes, on the 
public road. And yet on the afternoon of this same 
day, in the midst of the first transports of a union which 
has been for so long a time retarded, Iago takes upon 
himself to persuade the amorous Othello that Desdemona, 
the gentle Desdemona; has betrayed him, before even she 



SHAKSPEARE IX FRANCE. 329 

has belonged to him, — that she has delivered up her 
heart and her person, — to whom ? — to Cassio, who has 
been able neither to see her nor to converse with her. 
And Iago speaks of his passion as a thing already 
ancient, and yet— -and yet, as a tiling posterior to her 
marriage with Othello ;— for he represents Cassio as 
exclaiming ^Boiqg'isq to foviBifl b i 

"Cursed fate, that gave thee to the lloo# l 

- edi id Ifeamid 

and Iago speaks of Cassio's intrigue with innumerable 
details and interminable explanations. [& 

Which is the greatest simpleton, the man who con- 
ceives such a project, or the man who allows himself to 
^entrapped by it ? -,{ 6I [ S 90fm B9qcr6 11b ol 

WiH it be said that he succeeded?' — He succeeded 
according to the representation of the author j — but 
what will common sense say of the matter ? 

The author is himself successful : but why ? Because, 
such is the intensity and vivacity of his original con- 
ception, that the most revolting improbabilities, the most 
inconceivable absurdities, pass by unperceived ; because 
no one is so ungracious, no one has time to notice the 
stratagems of the drama. It is however another thing 
to offer these absurdities to be admired as merits, i 

And yet that is not without truth ■ from that moment 
when the first insinuation escapes the lips of Iago, and 
reaches the ears of the Moor,- — from the utterance of 
those fatal words : " Ay, well said, whisper * with as 



330 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as 
Cassio," — to that awful moment when the curtain falls 
on the corpses of the two lovers, the spectator is 
in a state of breathless expectation. You might hear 
the flight of a gnat across the room, and those are ill- 
judged spirits whose zeal compels them to interrupt 
by their applause the anxiety which is momentarily 
increasino-. ; ^ 6V SL ^ L1L [i0 ^ 0( l J 

In that first word, all has been said, all has been 
determined. Farewell for ever to Desdemona ! Pare- 
well to Othello ! Desdemona only appears henceforth as 
the innocent bird struggling feebly in the grasp of a vul- 
ture, but of a vulture who is himself furiously struggling 
under the grasp of another vulture, and who avenges 
himself, by his treatment of his unhappy victim, for the 
frightful tortures which he is suffering in his own person. 

The spectator looks upon this picture, not with that 
restless curiosity which passes alternately from fear to 
hope, but, if we may say so — and we do it fully sensible 
that there are important differences, — with something of 
that inexpressible anguish which absorbs us when, in 
a Court of Justice, we are watching the vain efforts of 
a criminal who is being hurried along to a fatal and 
inevitable condemnation. 

Othello has never thought, has never had occasion 
to think, how strange, how incomprehensible is the 
sentiment which he has inspired in Desdemona ; noAv for 
the first time he thinks of it j — 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 331 

" Haply for I am black, 
And have not those soft parts of conversation 
Tli at chamberers have ; or, for I am declined 
Into the vale of years." 

One irregular taste, Iago suggests to him, indicates 
other irregularities. Beyond a doubt she is lost — 

f( s * ie s g one - maiij gfeqmoo leas saorlw gJrriqg be 
This first suspicion, to use Schlegel's energetic 

language, is "a drop of poison in his veins, and sets 

his whole blood in the wildest ferment." The savage is 

again uppermost. The civilised portion of his nature, 

which has never met him in this region, which has only 

subdued him on the field of battle, is powerless to 

hold him in check. The struggle goes on for some 

moments ; for some moments does Othello, the warrior, 

the statesman, the lord of others and of himself, attempt 

to treat his own love as a sportive flame, his jealousy 

as a folly .-^ t3 * n jj ia J n p 

" Exchange me lor a goat, 
When I shall turn the business of my soul 
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises. 

oldignog vnnl fi^oh ot^Tj - : , i # \j ^ud t sqod 
) -gmtltemoe dirw — &z Xo ' Ia s°; ami < 

I'll see before I doubt ; when I doubt, prove ; 
And, on the proof, there is no more but this,— 
Away at once with love or jealousy. ^ 

Look here, Iago ; 
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven. 
'Tis gone ! " 

But his efforts are vain j his defiance is fruitless j at 
the first onslaught he sees his mighty courage fail, at 
the first shock of battle he knows himself to be 
vanquished ; he turns a last fond look towards that 



332 mmMmmm 

dreamily the courser and the trumpet, the assault and 

the vife#f :-&& h 

ozl&'&qMiQq bna ; gkaffl^a^ f<k«ftfj93 xfjiw h9io9nffoo 

Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content ! 
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, 
. That make ambition virtue ! 0, farewell ! ..,-,■• - 

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, 
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife; ■ 

rad ni roil B^^r^.^ . f ogB T fI9I [ w baA 

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! 
And 0, you. mortal engines, whose rude throats 
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, 
Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone ! " 

rioirlw gjnsrrrijfias sift lo oomt on <i9V9W0if <si diodT 
After this cry, all the struggle within him ceases. 

In proportion as jealousy spreads its ravages in this 

spirit which is already wrecked, we can watch the 

re-appearance under all the most hideous forms of the 

semi-brutish nature; we may see its growth; we may 

hear its roar ; a creature not to be controlled by reason, 

deaf to the accents of truth, insensible to utterances of 

tenderness, unapproachable by moral evidence, which, 

in the wildness of its fury, passes from one extreme 

to another, now delighting, with savage joy, Jjij .its 

own detailed recital, in terms of the most revolt- 

ing barbarity, of the outrage which it contemplates, 

c y 1 g ou '"jingib adj 9\h5nimj3Jfioo ^iaa909n \o teomls 
9ftt dtiw Jgjsitaoo Sd^md^akuli M'gnoid teoq 9ift Jon 

And then, in conclusion, falling, without knowing hbtv 
or why, from rage down to despair. 

Humanity has altogether forsaken him, except it be 



SHAKSPEAKE IN FllANCE. 333 

in his frequently returning fits of emotion, pity, or 
regret ; but these are always provoked by the remem- 
brance of Desdemona' s charms — by ideas which are 
connected with sensual enjoyments ; and perhaps also 
it may yet lurk m certain glimmerings of a rough equity, 
such as may be found under the Bedouin's tent, or in a 
bandit's cavern: "For she had eyes and chose me." 
And when Iago proposes to him to "strangle her in her 
bed, even the bed she hath contaminated," he replies, 
" Good, good ; the justice of it pleases ; very good." 

There is, however, no trace of the sentiments which 
he ought to have imbibed by his connexion with 
civilised and polite society ; no respect for himself or 
for others, no remembrance of kindnesses; he gives 
directions for a base act of assassination,— that of 
Cassio ; he strikes Desdemona brutally, in presence of 
the messengers of the Senate and of his own officers, 
iu public, and in his own private interviews with her ; 
he treats her as the most abandoned of women, heaping 
upon her the bitterest sarcasms, and the most degrading 
epithets. 

The sight of an heroic soul thus debased by its 
ferocity down to the level of the mere animal, would 
almost of necessity contaminate the dignity of art, had 
not the poet brought it into constant contrast with the 
graceful, pure, and truly celestial figure of Desdemona. 
Never has any artist pourtrayed with greater delicacy 
that astonishment which is felt by an innocent soul 



334 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

when, for the first time, the overflow of its warm 
affection is repulsed by a hard word or a severe look, — 
its timid- efforts to turn the repulse into wanton play- 
fulness, to renew a tender and free exchange of 
sentiment and thought, to exercise for some moments 
that pleasant and transient ascendancy which shall afford 
the young spouse many bright recollections in days yet 
to come. 

In proportion as this new character of Othello develops 
itself, we may see (so to speak) — through that transparent 
poetry of which Shakspeare alone possesses the secret, — 
the mild countenance of Besdemona gradually lose its 
serenity. The first idea that presents itself to her mind 
is, that Othello's roughness — that roughness for which 
she had prepared herself long before — has somewhat too 
soon made its appearance. But her heart is immediately 
resigned, — she has an excuse ready at hand ■&&■& 

iitefii 9ff.j- rxo hod oj- jjoy teO i3 .srfonrsbgod o) t 9oiov 

" Nay, we must think men are not gods ; 
Nor of them look for such observances 
As fit the bridal." 

3flj si ami .mol \m Jliw P s t gi ^fqai 
And when Othello strikes her in public, she is content 
only to weep and to say, " I have not deserved this." 

But when Othello bursts out into rage against her, 
when he loads her with outrageous reproaches, when he 
reviles her as a shameless prostitute, her voice fails her ; 
the blood which rushes to her face, stifles all utterance ; 
she sinks rather under the confusion of hearing such 
language than because it is Othello who addresses her : 



SHAKSPEAEE IN FRANCE. 335 

some feeble sighs, some useless protests, are her only 
defence ; she has seen her fate written in the terrific 
looks of her husband. She lowers her head, and directs 
Emilia to spread upon her couch her wedding-dress, in 
which she desires to be enshrouded; she offers her 
breast to the knife as a " stainless sacrifice," (another 
of SchlegeFs happy expressions), as a lamb which has 
been accustomed only to bound and frolic in its native 
meadows, and which walks to the altar without knowing 
why, and licks the hand which is conducting it thither. 

This it is precisely which explains the inexpressible 
charm and painful interest of this scene, which we have 
already alluded to ; a scene which, placed entirely apart 
from this, would transgress the proper limits of a work 
of artfidwam 

Othello, when he has taken leave of the messengers 
of the Senate, says, with a rugged, severe tone of 
voice, to Desdemona, " Get you to bed on the instant ; 
I will be returned forthwith; look it be done." Her 
reply is, "I will, my lord." This is the sentence of 
death, and she knows it ; but not even a thought of 
disobedience enters her mind ; she does not dream of 
securing the least assistance : Othello has spoken. 

The scene in which she undresses herself, before 
retiring to her bed, is then most truly for her that 
respite of a quarter of an hour which is granted to 
criminals before they are conducted to punishment. In 
vain does she attempt to suggest a different mood to 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 



Emilia, or to practise deception upon herself by turning 
her thoughts to any trifling subjects that may arise : the 
inmost conviction of her soul rises in rebellion against 
every word. And, for the agitated spectator, this scene 
is of a similar character : he counts the minutes, he 
clings to the least thing, he asks impatiently why there 
is still no other knot to untie, no other clasp to unloose ; 
his wishes would almost urge him to take hold on 
Desdemona's robe, and save her from impending fate. 

Tragic poets, behold your master !- — learn a lesson from 
him, if you can ! 

The scene in which the Moor kills Desdemona sur- 
prised the public : but their surprise was not of long 
duration, and was soon changed into fullest approval. 
Accustomed as they were to see this scene lengthened 
out in Rossini's opera — to watch the imposing attitudes 
of Madame Pasta, or the efforts of Madame Malibran, to 
save her life, the brevity of the English original at first 
astonished them. But, at the same time, the dialogue, 
so concise, so rapid, moving so directly to the mark — 
those ambiguous, and, at the same time, distracted words 
which Othello mutters in suppressed tones of voice ; 
that inexorable determination which he has made and 
which he executes with agitated haste, with bursting 
heart and teeth closely set, hardly daring to look upon 
his victim, but without even a momentary wavering — 
Desdemona's entreaties, short, tender, timid : so much 
so, that they only show her concern for life ; her replies, 



: 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 337 

in which all the bold confidence of innocence declares 
itself, when Othello alludes to her handkerchief, which 
had been found on Cassio : 

"He found it there!" 



and, when Othello declares to her that Cassio has con- 
fessed his crime : 

" He will not say so." 

Words of simple sublimity, which Mademoiselle Mars 
renders with an accent of corresponding simplicity and 
sublimity ; those cries from without which hasten the fatal 
stroke, and, as it were, nerve the arm of Othello— all this 
was most deeply felt, applauded as far as the emotion which 
it caused would allow, and— if we may say so without 
suggesting any comparison that would be invidious — the 
tragic scene appeared as superior to the lyric scene as the 
tragedy of Othello itself is superior to the libretto which is 
sold for thirty sous at the entrance of the Opera BoufTon. 

Immediately after this scene an incident follows which, 
we are perfectly aware, has been much applauded by all 
critics, which is greatly celebrated in all modern poetical 
criticism, which is even strongly commended by philo- 
sophers as an inimitable touch of nature. 

Emilia enters the chamber, and Desdemona in her last 
moments yet finds enough strength left to accuse herself 
of her own death, and to exculpate Othello :• — 

" Nobody : I myself : Farewell ! 
Commend me to my kind lord : Oh, farewell ! " 

We must give our testimony that there was no effect 



338 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

whatever produced by these words ; and we will freely 
confess that we should always doubt whether there ought 
to be any. noh 

Let the critics fulminate against us, let them, if they 
will, launch their thunderbolts against us; but it has 
always appeared to us that this short passage betrays a 
theatrical artifice, and that here it is the poet who speaks 
to us through the mouth of his character. It has always 
appeared to us that this last expiring utterance of 
Desclemona involves an idea far too complicated, far too 
refined, — -a prevision, a precaution, which harmonise 
neither with her position, nor even with her character. 

Since the day of her marriage, Desdemona has 
regarded herself as Othello's property, — as a thing of 
which Othello is the absolute master, to use or abuse at 
his pleasure, — as a slave whom he may beat or kill, 
according as his fancy may lead him ; how then came 
she to think all at once that Othello could run any risk 
so far as she was concerned, or that it was necessary to 
place him under shelter from a criminal prosecution ? Let 
her kiss Othello's hand when dying; this is quite in 
keeping with her character, — but for her to give her 
evidence in his favour, by anticipating the proceedings in 
a Court of Justice, is not. 

Whether we are right or wrong is yet to be seen ; 
this, however is of little importance. For the fact we 
can vouch — we repeat it — that these words made little 
or no impression. 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 339 

On the other hand, we can hardly say enough in praise 
of the last scene, — a scene abont which the critics say 
little, but which is, in our humble opinion, one of the 
most admirable in the whole piece, and which produced 
an impression worthy of its transcendent beauty. 

Hardly has Desdemona breathed out her last sigh, 
scarcely has the blind fury of Othello satiated himself, 
when the scene changes, his reason returns, the light 
of truth bursts upon him like a flood, and encounters 
him on all sides. Not by the explanations of Emilia 
is he undeceived, nor even by the confessions of 
Iago. Half an hour previously he would not have 
listened to any thing of the kind, but now he anticipates 
it all. i — [ b'oIMJO es Ifoaiod beh<. 

Even as he had attempted at first to summon his 
good sense and firmness to his assistance, against the 
first assaults of jealousy, so now he attempts to summon 
his frenzy and blind infatuation to his assistance; 
against the clamorous reproaches of his reason. He 
cries out with affected brutality, when speaking of 
Desdemona : — 

"She's like a liar, gone to burning hell. 
'Twaslthatkill'dher." 

He calls with vaunting impetuosity upon Iago, — 

r[J3ilW 

" Honest, honest Iago ! " 

to afford him shelter and protection; he constrains 
himself to recount once more the basenesses which he 

z 2 



340 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

has always before spoken of in accents of wild fury ; but 

now his language is involuntarily changed : — 

— t mdi bxiA 

" Tis pitiful ; but yet Iago knows 
f .-That she with Cassio has the act of shame 
A thousand times committed/'^ w Q \ M j 

Vain efforts ! he is at length compelled to contemplate 
himself as he really is. Deprived of a being of spotless 
goodness, whom he adored, he now sees himself as 
others see him, the object not only of horror, but also of 
derision and contempt. Such epithets as calumniator, 
murderer, assassin, are too gentle for him-— he is an in- 
furiated madman, an enraged wild beast, a bull goaded 
by the gad-fly, or which has thrown itself, with deter- 
mination to trample under its feet and to gore with its 
horns, upon a piece of red cloth which a malicious hand 
has placed before its eyes. He is in exactly the same 
position as Ajax, in Sophocles, at the moment when 
he recovers his senses, after his unhappy mania has 
departed. 

Such words audw sos xxv/o 

brm Jrio^^xbxBoM* ! edsi68 9H .onainq 

As ignorant as dirt ! " 

oil J xxl Si lo mxxl ovrxqab oJ woxx ousb IIxy/ kiossiq 
are showered down upon Othello from all sides, At 

first he holds down his head, abandoned to his self- 



recriminations- — he is disarmed like a child. 

But every puny whipster gets my sw^or <foft bu J 

But immediately he adds — and this relieves him :— 



> SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 341 

« But why should honour outlive honesty ? 
Let it go, all." 

f)9gfi6ilD ^IkiBtorloviri ax sgflfjgfiBl %i& won 
And then, — 

"I have seen the day, 
That, with this little arm, and this good sword, 
I have made my way through more impediments 
Than twenty times your stop. But 0, vain boast ! 
Who can control his fete? 'Tis not so now. 
Be not afraid though you do see me weapon' d. 
Here is my journey's end -here is my butt 
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail. 
Do you go back dismayed? 'Tis a lost fear : 
Make. but a rush against OtheUo's breast, 
And he retires." 

t iotonnimj5o &b gjsfijiqs rlond .jqmajnoo hue noianab 
Then he falls upon the body of Desdemona, uttering 
wild, inarticulate cries, which it is impossible to hear 
without a shudder of grief and sympathy. 

However, this paroxysm, of humiliation and despair 
only lasts for a moment. Othello soon recovers his 
self-possession. In proportion as reason regains its 
empire in him, he, in his turn, regains his accustomed 
^ascendancy over all the circumstances that surround him, 
Two or three stern and significant words show that he 
has determined in his own soul what course he shall 
pursue. He seizes another sword, and none of those 
present will dare now to deprive him of it. In the 
presence of Cassio, he excuses himself with nobleness 
and simplicity; he contemplates with a look of indif- 
ference, in which there is a mixture of disdain, the 
preparations made to secure his person ; and when, at 
last, Ludovico advances towards him, and, in an already 
half-intimidated tone, orders him to be in readiness to 



342 SHAKSPEARE IK FRANCE. * 

take his departure to Venice, under a strong escort, 
in order -4o appear before the Senate, he interrupts him 
with the words, 

tP^ifXO t O(J(J91jCi. HI $■&&$ ^89.0139(3 {TfiB DQJn. 

"Soft you ; a word or two before you go." 
r 3 edi boossbmi baa ^amieaeY a i^sK 

See here, again, the mighty power of the poet; how 
much he can indicate by a single stroke. Ludovico 
shall depart alone, such is Othello's determination; 
Othello is not to go at all, such is his wish; no one is 
to dispose of him but himself ; he will not hear one 
remark on this point. He then proceeds, in a strain of 
dignified sadness :— 

aidi Jjs 

" I have done the State some service, and they know it ; 
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, 
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, 
Nor set down aught in malice; then must you speak 
Of one that loved, not wisely, but too well : 
Of one not easily jealous; but, being wrought, 
rcrplex'd in the extreme ; of one whose hand, , 

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away 
Richer than all his tribe ; of one whose subdued eyes, 
Albeit unused to the melting mood, 
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees 
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this. 

^^n^^aid, and after having provided, as &t*is 

possible for him, for his good name, he returns to self- 

jfloiitfioBifi^'rQ ff'ifOi ptfi ti^ T&nnfr [Trip • fort p ^i^ttS'Tni 
revenge- — he turns, with all the lofty pride of his in- 
dignant spirit, against that miserable body which he is 
about to chastise as a rebellious slave, as a ferocious 
animal which has dared to trample upon its master, and 
has thereby abandoned him to dishonour ; and, seeking 
for words expressive of the direst insult, which recal at 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 313 

once what lie was, and the works of his life, and what 
he has always most bitterly despised, he says : — 

"And say, besides, that in Aleppo, once, 
Where a malicrnant and a turban' d Turk 
Beat a Venetian, and traduced the State, 
I took by the throat the circumcised dog, 
And smote him — thus." . 
OOIYODIAJ. 

We have dilated on the effect produced by this 
faithful and, we may say, literal translation of '-'Othello/' 
because this effect seemed to us to augur very favourably 
for the French theatre. The piece was better played 
than any of the masterpieces of our dramatic writers is 
at this time; it has been better judged than any other 
piece, so far as we know, ever has been \ for it has been 
judged sincerely, without prejudice, without any spirit 
of partisanship, and each scene has been estimated 
according to its true value. 

If the public will resolutely maintain this freedom of 
mind, if they will continue henceforth, on every renewed 
attempt, to applaud only what seems to them to be 
good, to condemn that which strikes them as bad, to 
take up an attitude of indifference to things which are in 
themselves indifferent, it will, by these means, do much 
for art, and still more for its own gratification. It will 
save us the annoyance of an inundation of those imita- 
tions of the romantic school of the drama, which already 
threaten to supersede the imitations of the classical 
school. After we have tried, for a hundred years, under 
a thousand different names, endless variations on the 



344 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

"Andromaque," the "Merope," and the " Zaire," — 
variations, however, which are devoid of all the beauties 
which belong to the originals, — we shall be preserved 
from the misfortune of experiencing, under a thousand 
other names, and perhaps during another hundred years, 
mere repetitions of "Macbeth," /'Othello/' or "William 
Tell," minus the real beauties of "Macbeth/' "Othello," 
&fi$ "William Tell." 

The beautiful can never be the result of imitation : 
what is really imitated are the defects, the exterior 
forms, the mannerism of great poets ; and when the 
public, in its unreflecting.- enthusiasm for great poets, 
allows itself to applaud even their faults, or merely their 
mannerism, it is sure to have very soon more than 
enough of these. Joodoa oitafifnoi 

Let those who are attached to the romantic school be 
well assured that this school will not establish itself 
among us by means of reversed reproductions of old 
works of art in a thin, transparent disguise, nor by 
counterfeits foisted upon us under the pretence of being 
borrowed. Let them traduce the beautiful productions 
of foreign literature, line by line ; their work will not: be 
thrown away; Jbut, in Heaven's name, let them not 
produce these as novelties, and present them before us 
as fruits which are indigenous to their soil. They 
would not even have the excuse of their colleagues, — 
originality must always be original. And let not the 
public allow themselves to be duped — never let them 



SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 345 

applaud a modern author merely because he can dress 
himself up in the plumage of a great master. 

And let the friends of the classic school be well 
assured in their turn, that their only chance of safety 
is in being able to rival the romantic school. It is 
now already dead : it has been slain by the copyists I 
imitations at second and third hand have filled us with 
an insurmountable disgust. It will revive — of this 
there can be no doubt ; but its revival must be under 
a new and transformed appearance, released from the 
shackles by which it has been unreasonably entangled, 
free in its movements, prepared to enter upon a new 
career. $lusl iiailt 

This service must be rendered to it by the existing 
romantic school. 

That will be a happy time when we shall be able to 
see these two schools flourishing in the presence of each 
other, in a reasonable degree of independence, governed, 
each for itself, by the kws appropriate to its true nature, 
and distributing, with lavish hand, the beauties which 
are their own native growths. 

But it will be said, Do you then believe that the 
classic school has an actual existence, — that it is not a 
mistake, a folly, as has been so often declared? 
Assuredly, we believe this. Do you think that the 
romantic school has its laws, and that it does not 
consist in the abnegation of all laws ? Ear from it, 
You do not regard as laws of the classic school, those 



346 SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE. 

rules about which so much noise has been made ? Not 
at all. 

Explain yourself, then. Where is the line of 
demarcation between the two schools to be drawn? 
What is your idea of the classic, what of the romantic 
school ? What are those laws of which you speak ? 

These are questions which we would very gladly 
answer; but time presses, and the amount of space 
which can be allotted t o ne in a review of this kind is 
already more than exhausted. - We must, then, of 
necessity delay our answer till another opportunity. 
Moreover, the adherents of the romantic school have 
now a favourable breeze ; and as besides, they do not 
lack expertness to find pretexts, the occasion will not 
long be wanting to us. 

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HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

Shakspeake did not write his historical dramas m 
chronological order, and wiffi the intention of re-producing 
upon the stage the great events and characters of the 
history of England, as they had been successively deve- 
loped in fact. He had no idea of working on so general 
and systematic a plan. He composed his plays just 
according as some particular circumstance either sug- 
gested the idea, or inspired the whim, or imposed the 
necessity of composing them, never troubling himself 
about the chronology of the subjects, or about the uniform 
whole which certain works might form. He has intro- 
duced upon the stage nearly all the history of England 
from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, from 
John Lackland to Henry VIII. ; beginning with King 
Henry VI. and the fifteenth century, then ascending to 
King John and the thirteenth century, and finally ending 
with Henry VIII. and the sixteenth century, after having 
several times transposed the order of both centuries and 
kings. The following is the dramatic chronology of his 



343 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

six historical dramas, according to his most learned 
commentators, and, amongst others, Mr. Malone : — 

1. The First Part of King Henry VI. (1422-1461), composed in 1569. 

2. The Second Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591. 

3. The Third Part of King Henry VI., composed in 1591. 

4. King John (1199-1216), composed in 1596. 

5. King Richard II. (1377-1399), composed in 1597. 

6. King Richard III. (1483^4^5^,compo^dVin 1597. 

7. The First Part of King Henry IV. (1399-1413), composed in 1598. 

8. The Second Part of King Henry IV., composed in 1598. 

9. King Henry V. (1413-1422), composed in 1599. 
10. King Henry VIII. (1509-1547), composed in 160L 

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But, after having indicated with precision the chrono- 
logical order of the composition of Shakspeare's historical 
dramas, we must, in order properly to appreciate their 
character and dramatic connection, replace them in the 
true order of events. Tins I have done in the Notices 
which I have written on these dramas; and thus alone 
can we really behold the genius of Skakspeare unfolding 
and giving new life to the history of his^ country. 
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KING JOHN. 

si itairtT 9iIT ,v 
(1596.) 

In choosing the reign of John Lackland as the subject 
of a tragedy, Shakspeare imposed upon himself the 
necessity of not scrupulously respecting history. A reign 
in which, as Hume says, " England was baffled and 
affronted in every enterprise," could not be represented 
in its true colours before an English public and an 
English Court ; and the only recollection of King John 
to which the nation could attach any value — I refer to 
Magna Charta— was not a topic likely to interest, in any 
great degree, such a Queen as Elizabeth. Shakspeare's 
play accordingly presents only a summary of the last 
years of this disgraceful reign ; and the skill of the poet 
is employed to conceal the character of his principal 
personage without disfiguring it, and to dissemble the 
colour of events without altogether changing it. The 
only fact concerning which Shakspeare has distinctly 
adopted a resolution to substitute invention for truth, 
is the relation of King John to Erance ; and assuredly, 
all the illusions of national vanity were necessary to 



350 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

enable Shakspeare to describe, and the English to 
witness, Philip Augustus succumbing beneath the 
ascendancy of John Lackland. Such a picture might 
indeed have been presented to John himself when — 
living in total inactivity at Rouen, whilst Philip was 
regaining all his possessions in Prance— he vauntingly 
said, "Let the Prench go on: I will retake in a day 
what it has cost them years to acquire." AH that 
which, in Shakspeare' s play, is relative to the war with 
Prance, seems to have been invented in justification 
of this gasconade of the most cowardly and insolent of 
princ&sq §aom oil 

In the^est of the drama, the action itself, and the 
indication of facts which it was impossible to dissemble, 
are sufficient to give us a glimpse of a character, into 
the inmost recesses of which the poet did not venture to 
penetrate, and into which he could not have penetrated 
without disgust. But such a personage, and so can- 
strained a manner of description, were not capable of 
producing a great dramatic effect; and Shakspeare has 
therefore concentrated the interest of his drama upon 
the fate of young Arthur, and has devolved upon 
Paulconbridge that original and brilliant part in which 
we feel that he takes delight, and which he never refuses 
to introduce into any of his works. 

Shakspeare has presented the young Duke of Bre- 
tagne to us at that age at which it first became necessary 
to assert his rights after the death of King Richard— 



KING JOHN". IRAK 351 

that is, at about twelve years old. We know that at 
the period to which Shakspeare's tragedy refers, Arthur 
was about twenty-five or twenty-six, and that he was 
already married, and an object of interest from his 
amiable and brilliant qualities, when he was taken pri- 
soner by his uncle ; but the poet felt how much more 
interesting the exhibition of weakness in conflict with 
cruelty became when exemplified in a child. And 
besides, if Arthur had not been a child, it would not 
have been allowable to put forward his mother in 
his place; and by suppressing Constance, Shakspeare 
would, perhaps, have deprived us of the most pathetic 
picture that he ever drew of maternal love — one of 
the feelings of which he evinced the profoundest appre- 
ciation. 

But, at the same time that he rendered the fact more 
touching, he lessened the horror which it inspires by 
diminishing the atrocity of the crime. The most gene- 
rally received opinion is, that Hubert de Bourg, who 
had promised to put Arthur to death only that he might 
save him, had, in fact, deceived the cruelty of his uncle 
by false reports and a pretended burial ; but that John, 
on being informed of the truth, first withdrew Arthur 
from the Castle of lalaise, in which he was confined 
under Hubert's guardianship, and transferred him to 
the Castle of Rouen, whither he proceeded at night, and 
by water, had his nephew conveyed into his boat, 
stabbed him with his own hand, tied a stone to his 



352 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

body, and threw him into the river. Such an image 
would naturally be rejected by a true poet. Inde- 
pendently of the necessity of absolving his principal 
personage of so odious a crime, Shakspeare perceived 
how much more dramatic and conformable to the 
general nature of man, the cowardly remorse of John, 
when he perceived the danger in which he was plunged 
by the report of his nephew's death, would be, than this 
excess of brutal ferocity ; and certainly, the fine scene 
between John and Hubert, after the withdrawal of the 
lords, is amply sufficient to justify his choice. Besides, 
the picture which Shakspeare presents had too strong a 
hold upon his imagination, and had acquired too much 
reality in his eyes, for him not to be conscious that, after 
the incomparable scene in which Arthur obtains his 
safety from Hubert, it would be impossible to endure 
the idea of any human being laying hands on this poor 
child, and forcing him again to undergo the agony from 
which he has just escaped. The poet also knew that 
the sight of Arthur's death, although less cruel, would 
be intolerable if accompanied, in the minds of the 
spectators, by the anguish which the thought of 
Constance would add to it ; and he is therefore careful 
to inform us of the death of the mother before making 
us witness the death of the child ; just as if, when his 
genius had conceived, to a certain degree, the pain- 
fulness of any particular feeling or passion, his tender 
heart became alarmed at it, and sought to modify it for 



KING J0H#.fl A3g8 ^ AH8 353 

its own sake. Whatever misfortune Shakspeare may 
depict, lie almost invariably leads us to anticipate a still 
greater misfortune, before which his mind recoils, and 
which he spares us the unhappiness of beholding. 

The character of the bastard, Faulconbridge, was 
suggested to Shakspeare by a drama of Rowley's, 
entitled, " The Troublesome Reign of King John," which 
appeared in 1591, that is, five years before Shakspeare' s 
play, which was composed, it is believed, in 1596. 
Rowley's play was reprinted in 1611, with Shakspeare' s 
name attached to it, — rather a common trick of the 
booksellers and publishers of that time. This circum- 
stance, and the extent to which Shakspeare has borrowed 
from this work, has led several critics to believe that 
he had had a hand in it, and that * The Life and Death 
of King John" was only a re-cast of the first work ■• 
but it does not appear that this supposition has any 
foundation in fact. 

According to his custom, while borrowing whatever 
he pleased from Rowley, Shakspeare has added great 
beauties to his original, and has retained nearly all its 
errors. Thus, Rowley supposed that it was the Duke 
of Austria who killed Richard Cceur-de-Lion, and at the 
same time he makes the Duke of Austria perish by the 
hand of laulconbridge, an historical personage whom 
Matthew Paris mentions under the name of Lalcasius cle 
Breaute, the natural son of King Richard, and who, 
according to Holinshed, slew the Viscount of Limoges, 



354 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

in revenge for the death of his father, who, it is well 
known, was killed at the siege of Chalnz, a fortress 
belonging to that nobleman. In order to reconcile 
Holinshed's version with his own, Rowley has made 
Limoges the family name of the Duke of Austria, whom 
he designates as " Limoges, Duke of Austria." Shak- 
speare has copied him exactly in this part of his story. 
He also attributes the murder of Richard to the Duke 
of Austria ; in his play also, the Duke of Austria falls 
by the hand of Eaulconbridge ; and, as regards the con- 
fusion of the two personages, it would appear that 
Shakspeare was as unscrupulous about it as Rowley > if 
we may judge from Constance's speech to the Duke of 
Austria in the first scene of the third act, in which she 
addresses him as " O Lymoges ! O Austria ! " The 
character of Eaulconbridge is one of those creations of 
Shakspeare' s genius in which we discover the nature of 
all times and of all countries. Eaulconbridge is the 
true soldier, the soldier of fortune, personally recognising 
no inflexible duty but that which he owes to the chief to 
whom he has devoted his life, and from whom he has 
received the rewards of his valour ; and yet a stranger to 
none of those feelings upon which other duties are 
founded, and even obeying the instincts of natural 
rectitude whenever they do not come into contradiction 
with the vow of implicit fidelity and submission to which 
his existence, and even his conscience, is devoted. He 
will be humane, generous, and just, whenever this vow 



KING JOHN. 355 

does not ordain him to practise inhumanity, injustice, 
and bad faith; he forms a correct judgment of the 
things to which he is subject, and is in error only 
regarding the necessity of subjecting himself to them. 
He is as skilful as he is brave, and does not alienate his 
judgment while renouncing its guidance : he is a man 
of powerful nature, whom circumstances and the neces- 
sity of employing his activity in some way or other, 
have reduced to a moral inferiority, from which a calmer 
disposition, and profounder reflections upon the true 
destination of man, would most probably have preserved 
him. But, with the fault of not having sought the 
objects of his fidelity and devotion in a sufficiently 
lofty sphere, Paulconbridge possesses the eminent merit 
of unchangeable fidelity and devotion, two singularly 
lofty virtues, both as regards the feeling from which 
they emanate, and the great actions of which they may 
be the source. His language is, like his conduct, the 
result of a mixture of good sense and ardour of imagina- 
tion, which frequently involves his reason in a jumble of 
words very natural to men of Faulconbridge's profession 
and character ; being incessantly exposed to the shock 
of the most violent scenes and actions, they cannot 
find in ordinary language the means of conveying the 
impressions which compose the habit of their life. 

The general style of the play is less firm and 
decided in colour than that of several other tragedies by 
the same poet ; the contexture of the work is also rather 

A A 2 



356 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

vague and feeble, but this is the result of the absence of 
one leading idea, which should continually direct all the 
parts of the drama towards the same centre. The only 
idea of this kind which can be discerned in " King 
John," is the hatred of foreign dominion gaining the 
victory over the hatred of tyrannical usurpation. 1 {$ 
order for this idea to be salient, and constantly to 
occupy the mind of the spectator, it would be necessary 
for it to be reproduced in every direction, and for every- 
thing to contribute to give conspicuity to the misfortune 
of a conflict between the two feelings. But this plan, 
which would be rather vast for a dramatic work, was, 
moreover, irreconcilable with the reserve which Shak- 
speare had imposed upon himself with regard to the 
character of the King; and thus a great part of the 
play is passed in discussions of but little interest, and in 
the remainder, the events are not well arranged ; the 
lords change sides too lightly, first on account of the 
death of Arthur, and afterwards from motives of 
personal alarm, which does not present their return to 
the cause of England under a sufficiently honourable 
point of view. The poisoning of King John, moreover, 
is not prepared with that care which Shakspeare usually 
bestows upon the foundation and justification of the 
slightest circumstances in his dramas ; and there is 
nothing to indicate the motive which could have led 
the monk to commit so desperate an action, as at that 
moment, John was reconciled to Rome. The tradition 



KING JOHN. 357 

from which Shakspeare has borrowed this apocryphal 
anecdote, ascribes the monk's conduct to a desire to 
revenge an offensive epithet which the King had used 
regarding him. We cannot tell what could have induced 
Shakspeare to adopt this story, which he has turned to 
so little account ; perhaps he desired to mingle with 
John's last moments something of infernal suffering, 
without having recourse to remorse, which, in fact, would 
not have been in more accordance with the real character 
of this contemptible prince, than with the modified 
delineation of it which the poet has supplied. 

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KIM EICHAED II. 

(1597.) 

In proportion as Shakspeare advances towards the 
more modern times of the history of his country, the 
chronicles npon which he relies for information coincide 
more exactly with historical truth ; and already, in "The 
Life and Death of King Richard II.," the details 
furnished him by Holinshed differ only in a slight 
degree from the historical data which have been handed 
down to us as authentic. With the exception of the 
Queen, who is a pure invention of the poet's imagination, 
and passing over the chronological disorder occasioned 
by Shakspeare' s negligence in keeping events at a 
proper distance from each other, the facts contained 
in this tragedy differ in no respect from historical 
narratives of the same period, except with regard to the 
kind of death which Richard suffered. Holinshed, who 
copied other chroniclers, supplied Shakspeare with the 
story which he has followed; but the most probable 
opinion, and that which is in most accordance with the 
care taken publicly to expose Richard's body after his 



KING RICHARD II. 359 

death, is, that he was left to die of hunger. This 
attention to evade, at least, the material appearances 
of crime, whilst caring little to avoid suspicion, 
was beginning to be introduced into the ferocious 
politics of these times ; and Richard himself had stifled, 
beneath a mattress, the Duke of Gloucester, whom he 
held prisoner in Calais, and had afterwards announced 
that he had died of an attack of apoplexy. Besides 
Shakspeare's tendency to follow implicitly the historical 
guide whom he had once adopted, this version allowed 
him to preserve to the character of Bolingbroke, that 
interest with which he has invested it, both in this 
drama, and in the two parts of " King Henry IV." The 
choice between different versions of the same story, is, 
moreover, the least contested and the least contestable 
privilege of dramatic authors. 

The tragedy of * Richard II." is then, generally 
speaking, sufficiently conformable to history; and the 
manner in which the poet has described the deposition 
of Richard, and the accession to the throne of Henry of 
Lancaster, appears singularly in accordance with what 
Hume says on the subject : " Henry IV. became king, 
nobody could tell how or wherefore." But it would 
be necessary to be, like Hume, entirely unacquainted 
with the sight of revolutions, to be puzzled to say hoAv 
and why the Duke of Lancaster, after, having acted for 
some time in the name of the King, whom he kept 
prisoner, finally established himself without difficulty in 



360 SHAKSPEAEE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

his place. Shakspeare did not think it necessary to 
explain this ; Richard left Flint Castle with the title of 
king, in the retinue of Bolingbroke ; and we next see 
him signing his own deposition. The poet does not in 
any way indicate to us what has passed ; but in order 
not to guess how the fall of Richard was accomplished, 
it would be necessary for us to have very ill understood 
the picture presented to us of his first degradation ; and 
the conversation of the gardener with his servants com- 
pletes the description by revealing to us its effects upon 
public opinion. It was a characteristic of Shakspeare's 
art to make us present at every part of the event ; and 
he always transports us to the scene in which he 
strikes his most decisive blows, whilst at a distance 
from our view, the action pursues its course, and 
contents itself with meeting us again when it has 
reached its consummation. 

Although this tragedy is entitled "The Life and 
Death of King Richard II.," it only comprises the last 
two years of that prince's reign, and contains only a 
single event, namely, his downfall, — the catastrophe 
towards which every circumstance tends from the very 
outset of the play. This event has been considered 
under different aspects, and a rather singular anecdote 
has revealed to us the existence of another tragedy on 
the same subject, anterior, as it would appear, to 
Shakspeare's drama, and treated in an altogether different 
point of view. Some of the partisans of the Earl of 



KING RICHARD II. 361 

Essex, on the day preceding his extravagant enterprise, 
procured the performance of a tragedy in which, as in 
Shakspeare's drama, Richard II. was deposed and put to 
death on the stage. The actors having represented to them 
that the play was entirely out of fashion, and would not 
attract a sufficient audience to cover the expense of the 
performance, Sir Gilly Merrick, one of the confederates, 
gave them forty shillings above the receipts. This fact 
was mentioned at the trial of Sir Gilly, and served to 
procure his condemnation. 

The conspiracy of the Earl of Essex occurred in 1601, 
and Shakspeare's tragedy appeared, it is believed, in 
the year 1597. Notwithstanding this precedence, no 
one will be disposed to suspect that one of Shakspeare's 
plays could have figured in a factious enterprise against 
Elizabeth. Besides, the drama in question seems to 
have been known by the name of " Henry IV.," and 
not by that of " Richard II. j " and there is reason to 
believe that the history of Henry IV. was its true 
subject, and Richard's death only an incident. But in 
order to remove every kind of doubt, it is sufficient 
to read Shakspeare's tragedy; the doctrine of divine 
right is incessantly presented in it, accompanied by that 
interest which is excited by the aspect of the misfortunes 
of fallen greatness. If the poet has not given to the 
usurper that odious physiognomy which produces 
hatred and the dramatic passions, it is sufficient to read 
history to understand the cause of this. 



362 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

This vagueness of the moral aspect under which men 
and things present themselves, and which does not allow 
the feelings to attach themselves vigorously to any one 
object, because they can rest upon nothing with satisfac- 
tion, is not a fact peculiar to Richard II. and his destiny, 
in the history of these disastrous times. Parties ever at 
conflict with each other for the supreme power, van- 
quished ™by turns, and always deserving their defeat, 
without any one of them having ever deserved victory, 
do not present a very dramatic spectacle, nor one very 
well calculated to elevate our feelings and faculties to 
that degree of exaltation which is one of the noblest 
objects of art. Pity is, in such a case, often wanting to 
indignation, and esteem almost always to pity. We 
have no difficulty in finding out the crimes of the 
strongest, but we look with anxiety for the virtues of 
the weakest ; and the same effect is produced when the 
circumstances are changed : follies, depredations, in- 
justice, and violence, have led to Richard's downfall, 
and have even rendered it necessary ; and they detach 
us from him by the twofold reason that we behold him 
working out his own ruin, and that we find it impossible 
to save him. It would, however, be easy to discover at 
least as many crimes in the party which triumphs over 
his degradation. Shakspeare might, with little trouble, 
have amassed against the rebels those treasures of indig- 
nation which would animate all hearts in favour of the 
legitimate sovereign ; but one of the principal charac- 



KING RICHARD II. 363 

teristics of Shakspeare's genius is a truthfulness, I may 
say, a fidelity of observation, which reproduces nature as 
it is, and time as it actually occurs. History supplied 
him neither with heroes superior to their fortune, nor 
with innocent victims, nor with instances of heroic 
devotion, or of imposing passion; he merely found 
the very strength of his characters employed in the 
service of those interests which degrade them — perfidy 
considered as a means of conduct, treason almost justi- 
fied by the dominant principle of personal interest, and 
desertion almost rendered legitimate by the consideration 
of the risk that would be run by remaining faithful ; 
and all this he has described. It is, in truth, the Duke 
of York, a personage of whose incapacity and nullity we 
are informed by history, whom Shakspeare has selected 
to represent this ever-ardent devotedness to the man 
who governs, this facility in transferring his obedience 
from rightful to actual power, and vice versa, merely 
allowing himself, for his honour, to shed a few solitary 
tears on behalf of the monarch whom he has abandoned. 
To any one who has not witnessed the sport of fortune 
with empires, this personage would be only comic ; but 
to any one who has beheld such changes, does he not 
possess alarming truthfulness ? 

Surrounded by characters of this kind, whence could 
Shakspeare derive that pathetic element which he would 
have loved to infuse into the spectacle of fallen great- 
ness ? He who had given old Lear, in his misery, so 



364 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

many noble and faithful friends, could not find one for 
Richard ; the King has fallen stripped and naked into 
the hands of the poet, as he fell from his throne ; and 
in himself alone, the poet has been obliged to seek all his 
resources ; the character of Richard II. is, therefore, one 
of the profoundest conceptions of Shakspeare. 

The commentators have had a great discussion as to 
whether it was from the Court of James or of Elizabeth 
that Shakspeare derived the maxims which he so 
frequently professes in favour of divine right and 
absolute power. Shakspeare derived them ordinarily 
from his personages themselves \ and it was sufficient 
for him here to have to describe a king already seated 
on the throne. Richard never imagined that he ever 
was, or could be, anything but a king ; his royalty was, 
in his eyes, a part of his nature, one of the constituent 
elements of his being, which he brought into the world 
with him at his birth, subject to no conditions but his 
life ; as he had nothing to do to retain it, it was no more 
in his power to cease to be worthy of it than to cease to 
be invested with it ; and hence arose his ignorance of his 
duties to his subjects, and to his own safety, and his 
indolent confidence in the midst of danger. Although 
this confidence abandons him for a moment at every 
new reverse, it returns immediately, doubling its force 
in proportion as he requires more of it to take the 
place of other props, which successively crumble away. 
When he has arrived at last at a point at which it is no 



KING RICHARD II. 365 

longer possible for him to hope, the King becomes 
astonished, looks around, and inquires if he is really 
himself. Another kind of courage then springs up 
within him — the courage imparted by such a misfortune 
that the man who experiences it becomes excited by the 
surprise into which he is thrown by his own position ; 
it becomes to him an object of such lively attention, that 
he dares to contemplate it in all its bearings, were it 
only for the purpose of understanding it ; and by this 
contemplation he escapes from despair, and sometimes 
rises to truth, the discovery of which always calms a 
man to a certain degree. But this calmness is barren, 
and this courage inactive ; it sustains the mind, but it is 
fatal to action ; all the actions of Richard are therefore 
deplorably feeble : even his reflections upon his actual 
condition reveal a consciousness of his own nullity, which 
descends, at certain moments, almost to baseness ; — and 
who could raise a man who, on ceasing to be a king, has 
lost, in his own opinion, the distinctive quality of his 
being, the dignity of his nature ? He believed himself 
precious in the sight of God, sustained by His arm, and 
armed with His power ; when fallen from the mysterious 
rank which he had once occupied, he knows no place for 
himself upon earth : when stripped of the power which 
he believed his right, he does not suppose that any 
strength can remain to him : he therefore makes no 
resistance ; to do so would be to try something which 
he believes impossible : in order to arouse his energy, 



366 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

some sudden and pressing danger must, as it were, 
provoke without his knowledge faculties which he 
disavows ; when his life is attacked, he defends himself, 
and dies with courage; but in order always to have 
possessed courage, he needed to know what a man is 
worth. 

We must not expect to find, in " Richard IL," any 
more than in the majority of Shakspeare's historical 
dramas, a particular character of style. Its diction is 
not greatly elaborated ; though frequently energetic, it is 
frequently also so vague as to leave the reason to decide 
as it pleases upon the meaning of the expressions, which 
can be determined by no rule of syntax. 

This play is written entirely in verse, a great part 
of which is in rhyme. The author appears to have made 
some changes in it after the first edition, which was 
published in 1597. The scene of Richard's trial, in 
particular, is entirely wanting in this edition, and occurs 
for the first time in that published in 1608. 



FIRST AND SECOND PARTS OF 

KING HENBY IV. 

(1597—1598.) 

The commentators have given to these two plays the 
title of comedies; and, in fact, although their subject 
belongs to tragedy, their intention is comic. In 
Shakspeare's tragedies, the comic sometimes arises 
spontaneously from the position of the personages 
introduced to assist the tragic action; here, not only 
does a part of the action absolutely turn upon the 
comic personages, but most of those whose rank, the 
interest in which they are concerned, and the dangers 
to which they expose themselves, might raise them to 
the dignity of tragic personages, are presented under 
the aspect which belongs to comedy, namely, under the 
weak or whimsical features of their nature. The almost 
puerile impetuosity of the fiery Hotspur, the brutal 
originality of his good sense, and his soldier -like ill-temper 
with all who endeavour to detain his thoughts for a 
moment beyond the circle of the interests to which his 



368 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

life is devoted, give rise to some extremely piquant scenes. 
The Welshman, Glendower, boastful and vain-glorious, 
as loquacious as he is brave, who makes head against 
Hotspur whenever he threatens or contradicts him, but 
who yields and retires whenever a pleasantry alarms his 
self-love with the fear of ridicule, is a truly comic 
conception. Even the three or four words which 
Douglas utters are also characterised by a tinge of 
braggadocio. Neither of these three courages is ex- 
pressed in the same way; but all yield to that of 
Hotspur, the comic hue of whose character does not 
detract in the slightest degree from the interest which 
he inspires. We become attached to him as to Alceste 
in the " Misanthrope," — to a great character who is the 
victim of a quality which the impetuosity of his temper, 
and the pre-occupation of his own ideas, have turned into 
a defect. We see the brave Hotspur accepting the 
enterprise proposed to him before he knows its nature, 
as he feels certain of success as soon as he is struck with 
the idea of action; we see him successively losing all 
the supporters upon whom he had reckoned, abandoned 
or betrayed by those who have involved him in danger, 
and urged onward, as it were, by a sort of fatality 
towards the abyss which he does not perceive until the 
moment when he finds it impossible to draw back • and 
he falls regretting nothing but his glory. This is 
doubtless a tragical catastrophe, and the substance of 
the first part of the drama, the subject of which is the 



KING HENRY IV. 

n i, C TT V 11 l 

first step oi Henry V . towards glory, required one ot 
this kind ; but the picture of the vagaries of the prince's 
youth, nevertheless, forms the most important part of the 
work, the principal character in which is Ealstaff. 

Ealstaff is one of the most celebrated personages of 
English comedy, and perhaps no drama can present a 
gayer one. The description of the follies of a youth so 
disorderly as that of Henry V., at a time when manners 
were so coarse and rude, would be a very melancholy 
picture, if, in the midst of its uncouth debauchery, 
habits and pretensions of a higher order did not effect 
a contrast, and perform a part all the more amusing 
because it is so out of place. It would have been very 
moral, undoubtedly, to cast the^ridicule of this impro- 
priety upon the prince who thus degrades himself; but, 
even if Shakspeare had not been the poet of the Court 
of England, neither probability nor art would have per- 
mitted him to debase such a personage as Henry V. 
He is careful, on the contrary, always to preserve to 
him the dignity of his character and the superiority 
of his position \ and Ealstaff, who is destined to amuse 
us, is admitted into the play onlv for the diversion of 
the prince. 

Born to move in good society, Ealstaff has not yet 
renounced all his pretensions of this kind • he has not 
adopted the coarseness of the positions to which he is 
degraded by his vices • he has given up everything, 
except his self-love • he does not make a merit of his 



370 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

intemperance, nor does he base his vanity upon the 
exploits of a bandit. If there were anything to which 
he would cling, it would be to the manners and qualities 
of a gentleman; to this character he would pretend, if 
he were permitted to entertain, or able to maintain, a 
pretension of any kind. At least, he is determined to 
give himself the pleasure of affecting these qualities, 
even should the gratification of this pleasure gain him 
an affront; though he neither believes in it himself, nor 
hopes that others believe in it, he must at any cost 
rejoice his ears with panegyrics upon his bravery, and 
almost upon his virtues. This is one of his weaknesses, 
just as the taste of Canary sack is a temptation which 
he finds it impossible to resist ; and the ingenuousness 
with which he yields to it, the embarrassments in which it 
involves him, and the sort of hypocritical impudence 
which assists him to get out of his dilemmas, make him 
an extraordinarily amusing personage. The plays upon 
words, although frequent in this drama, are much less 
numerous than in several other dramas of a more serious 
character, and are infinitely better placed. The mixture 
of subtlety, for which Shakspeare was indebted to the 
spirit of his time, does not prevent the gaiety in this 
piece, as well as in those in which Falstaff re-appears, 
from being perhaps more frank and natural than in any 
other work of the English drama. 

The first part of '■' Henry IV." appeared, it is believed, 
in 1597. , H . 



KING HENRY IV. 371 

Henry V. is the true hero of the second part; his 
accession to the throne, and the great change which 
results from it, constitute the event of the drama. The 
defeats of the Archbishop of York and of Northumberland 
are only the complement of the facts contained in the 
first part. Hotspur is no longer present to give these 
facts a life of their own, and the horrible treason of 
Westmoreland is not of a nature to establish a dramatic 
interest. The dying Henry IV. appears only to prepare 
the way for the reign of his son, and all our attention is 
already directed towards a successor who possesses 
equal importance from the fears and hopes which he 
occasions. 

Shakspeare has not borrowed the picture of these 
varied feelings entirely from history. The accession of 
Henry V. was generally a subject of rejoicing. Holinshed 
relates that, during the three days which followed the 
decease of his father, " diverse noblemen and honourable 
personages did to him homage, and swore to him due 
obedience, which had not been seen done to any of his 
predecessors — such good hope and great expectation 
was had of this man's fortunate success to follow." * 
The inconstant ardour of the public mind, which was 
maintained by frequent overthrows, necessarily rendered 
a new reign a subject of hope ; and the troubles which 
had agitated the reign of Henry IV., the cruelties with 
which they had been attended, and the continual distrust 

1 Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii, p. 543. 

b b 2 



372 . SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

which had resulted from them, naturally turned the eyes 
and the affections of the nation towards a young prince 
whose irregularities, at such a period of disorder, gave 
far less offence than his generous qualities inspired 
confidence. A portion of these irregularities was more- 
over ascribed to the jealous distrust of his father, who, 
by keeping him unconnected with public business, for 
which he had manifested great aptitude, and even denying 
him an opportunity to display his military talents, had 
cast his impetuous spirit into courses of disorder, in 
which the manners of the time did not permit him to 
pause until he had been guilty of its extremest excesses. 
Holinshed attributes to the malevolence of those who 
surrounded the King, not only the suspicions which he 
was disposed to entertain regarding his son, but also the 
odious reports which were spread in reference to the 
conduct of the prince. He relates an occasion on which 
the prince, having to defend himself against certain 
insinuations which had created a misunderstanding 
between his father and himself, appeared at Court with a 
retinue, the splendour and number of which were not 
calculated to diminish the suspicions of the King, and in 
a costume so singular that the chronicler thinks it worthy 
of special mention. It was " a gown of blue satin, full 
of small eylet holes, at every hole the needle hanging by 
a silk thread with which it was sewn." Whatever may 
be thought would be the constraint of the movements 
of a person clad in so unprepossessing a manner, the 






KING HENIiY IV. 373 



prince threw himself at his father's feet, and after 
after having protested his fidelity, presented him with a 
dagger, that he might rid himself of his suspicions by 
putting him to death, and " in presence of these lords/' 
he added, g and before God at the general judgment, I 
faithfully protest clearly to forgive you." The King, 
" moved herewith, cast from him the dagger," embraced 
his son with tears in his eyes, confessed his suspicions, 
and declared at the same time that they were effaced. 
The prince then demanded the punishment of his 
accusers, but the King replied that some delay was 
required by prudence, and did not punish them after all. 
But it appears that the general opinion sufficiently 
avenged the young prince ; and without precisely 
believing with Holinshed, who contradicts himseK in 
another place on this point, that Henry was always 
careful "to tether his affections within the tract of 
virtue," 1 we are led to suppose that there may be some 
exaggeration in the account of the excesses of his youth, 
which are rendered more remarkable by the sudden 
revolution which brought them to a termination, and by 
the splendour of glory which followed them, 

Shakspeare naturally adopted the tradition most 
favourable to dramatic effect ; and he also felt how r 
admirably adapted the part of a dying king and father, 
anxious about the fate of his son and his subjects, was 
to produce a touching and pathetic picture upon the 

i Holinshed-, Chronicle,, vol. ii, p. 539. 



374 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

stage ; and just as he has invented the episode of 
Gascoigne to enhance the beauty of his denouement, he 
has added to the scene of the death of Henry IV. 
developments which render it infinitely more interesting. 
Holinshed simply relates that the King, perceiving that 
the crown had been taken from his pillow, and learning 
that the prince had carried it away, sent for him, and 
required an explanation of his conduct, " Upon which, 
the prince with a good audacity answered: 'Sir, to 
mine and all men's judgments, you seemed dead in this 
world, wherefore I, as your next heir apparent, took 
that as mine own, and not as yours.' ' Well, fair son,' 
said the King, with a great sigh, ■ what right I had to 
it, God knoweth.' 'Well,' said the prince, 'if you 
die king, I will have the garland, and trust to keep it 
with the sword against all mine enemies, as you have 
done.' Then said the King, ' I commit all to God, and 
remember you to do well ; ' — -with that he turned himself 
in his bed, and shortly after departed to God." 1 Perhaps 
the answer of the young prince, rendered as a poet 
might have rendered it, would have been preferable to 
the studied speech which Shakspeare has put into his 
mouth ; he has, however, retained a part of it in the 
last reply of the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the 
scene is full of great beauties, as are also those which 
follow between Gascoigne and the prince. In the whole, 
Shakspeare seems to have desired to redeem, by beauties 

61 fri t b973ll9d 

1 Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 541. 






KmG HENRY IV. 



of detail, the necessary coldness of the tragic part : it 
contains many snch excellences, and its style is generally 
more careful and more free from whimsicality than that 
of most of his other historical dramas. 

The comic part, which is very important and very 
considerable in the second part of " Henry IV.," is 
not, however, equal in merit to the corresponding portion 
of the first part of the same play. Talstaff has got on 
in the interval ; he has a pension, and a rank ; his 
relations with the prince are less frequent ; his wit does 
not, therefore, so frequently serve to deliver him from 
those embarrassments which rendered him so comic ; 
and comedy is obliged to descend a stage to represent 
him in his true natnre, under the influence of his real 
tastes, and in the midst of the rascals with whom he 
associates, or the fools whom he makes his dupes. These 
pictures are undoubtedly painted with striking truth, 
and abound in comic features, but the truth is not always 
sufficiently removed from disgust for its comicality to 
find us disposed to enter into all the mirth which it 
inspires ; and the personages upon whom the ridicule 
falls do not always appear to us to be worth the trouble 
of laughing at them. The character of Talstaff is, 
however, perfectly sustained, and will appear in all 
its completeness when we next meet with it in another 

steff? 

The second part of " Henry IV." appeared, it is 
believed, in 1598. 



•fll 911 J 1991 0J ffllfl 1 

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9fl u t 8i iX9ibi/6 girf ^ 

,j3 won ieifi ol 

■ ' " 3 31 

KING HENET Y. 

,1599.) d x 3odq *r9ffjorm m ha A 

It is erroneously that most critics have regarded 
"" Henry V." as one of the weakest of Shakspeare's 
works. The fifth act, it is true, is empty and cold, and 
the conversations which compose it possess as little 
poetic merit as dramatic interest. But the progress of 
the first four acts is simple, rapid, and animated : the 
events of the history, plans of government or of conquest, 
plots, negotiations, and wars, are transformed in them 
without effort into dramatic scenes full of life and effect. 
If the characters are not completely developed, they are 
at least well drawn and well sustained ; and the double 
genius of Shakspeare, as a profound moralist and a 
brilliant poet, even in the painful and fantastic forms in 
which he sometimes clothes his thought and imagination, 
retains, in these four acts, all its abundance and its 
splendour. 

We also meet, in the words of the chorus which fills 
up the intervals between the acts, with remarkable 
proofs of Shakspeare's good sense, and of the instinct 



KING HENRY V. 377 

which led him to feel the inconveniences of his dramatic 
system. At the very opening of the play, he thns 
addresses his audience. " Let us/' he says, — 

" On your imaginary forces work ; 
For 't is your thoughts that now must deck our kings, 
Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times ; 
Turning the accomplishment of many years 

And in another place, he says : — 

" Linger your patience on ; and well digest 
The abuse of distance, while we force a play." 

P QifiSOT^yJF' H F - iftfJW 9fFt 

The popular and comic part of the drama, although 
the originality of Palstaff's wit is absent, contains scenes 
of perfect natural gaiety; and the Welshman Fluellen 
is a model of that serious, ingenious, inexhaustible, 
unexpected, and jocose military talkativeness, which 

excites at once our laughter and our sympathy. 

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Among the editors and commentators of Shakspeare, 

the three parts of " Henry VI .'" have formed a subject 

of controversy which is not .yet decided, nor, perhaps, 

even exhausted. Several of them have thought that the 

first of these pieces belonged to him in no respect; others, 

fewer in number, have also denied him the original 

invention of the last two parts, which, in their opinion, 

he had merely retouched, and the primitive conception 

of which belonged to one or two other authors. Neither 

of these three pieces was printed during Shakspeare's 

life -time, but this proves nothing, for the same may be 

said of several other works, the authenticity of which is 

contested by no one, although it certainly leaves every 

latitude to doubt and discussion, 

The general weakness of these three compositions, in 

which we can find only a small number of scenes which 

reveal the touch of a master's hand, would nevertheless 

not be a sufficient reason for ascribing them to another 

pen than his ; for, if they belonged to him, they would 



KING HENRY VI. 37 & 

be his first works, a circumstance that would sufficiently 
explain their inferiority, at least so far as regards the 
conduct of the drama, the connection of the scenes, and 
the art of sustaining and augmenting the interest 
progressively, by bringing all the various parts of the 
composition to one single impression which increases as 
it advances, just as a river becomes larger at every step 
from the influx of waters from every side. Such is, in 
fact, Shakspeare's character in his great compositions, 
but it is essentially wanting to the three parts of " Henry 
VI.," and especially to the first part. But Shakspeare's 
defects are equally absent — that refinement and emphasis 
from which he has not always escaped even in his finest 
works, and which are the almost necessary result of the 

r . • r r < r- - ., 

juvenility of ideas which, being astonished, as it were, at 
themselves, are unable to exhaust the pleasure which 
they feel in their own production. It woidd, indeed, be 
strange if Shakspeare's first essays were exempt from 
these defects. 

We must, however, distinguish here, between the 
three parts of " Henry VI.," those circumstances which 
concern the first part, to which it is believed that 
Shakspeare was almost entirely a stranger, and those 
which have reference to the other two parts, the invention 
and original composition of which are alone denied to 
1iim, although it is admitted that he retouched them to 
a considerable extent . These are the facts . 

In 1623, that is, seven years after the death of 



380 SHAKSPEARFS HISTORICAL DRAMAS 

Sliakspeare, appeared the first complete edition of his 
works, fourteen only of his dramas had been printed 
during his lifetime, and the three parts of " Henry VI." 
were not among the number ; they appeared in 1623, 
in the state in which they are given at the present day, 
and were all three ascribed to Sliakspeare, although a 
sort of tradition, as it would appear, already disputed 
his title to the authorship of the first part. On the 
other hand, as early as the year 1600, had been pub- 
lished, without the author's name, by Thomas Millington^ 
bookseller, two plays, entitled — one,. " The first part of 
the Contention between the two famous Houses of York 
and Lancaster;" and the other, "The true Tragedy 
of Richard, Duke of York, and Death of Good King 
Henry VI." Of these two plays, one served as a 
matrix, if I may be allowed the expression, for the 
second part of "Henry VL," and the other for the 
third. The progress and conformation of the scenes and 
dialogue are the same in both, with the exception of a 
few- slight differences ; entire passages have been 
transferred , verbatim from the original plays into those 
which Sliakspeare has given us under the name of the 
" Second and Third Parts of Henry VI." Most of the 
lines have been merely embellished, and a very small 
number only are entirely new. Mw liateh lo glooiq 8iid 
In 1619, that is, three years after the death of 
Shakspeare, these two original dramas were reprinted 
by a bookseller named Pavier, and this time with the 



KING HENRY VI. 381 

name of our poet. Hence arose among the critics the 
opinion that they belonged to Shakspeare, and ought to 
be regarded, either as a first composition, which he had 
himself revised and corrected, or as an imperfect copy, 
prepared for the actors, and printed in this state — which 
often happened, at this period, as authors were not 
generally in the habit of having their plays printed. 
This last opinion was for a long while the most general; 
but it cannot bear investigation, for, as it is observed 
by Mr. Malone, who of all the commentators has thrown 
most light upon this question, an awkward copyist omits 
and maims, but does not add to his original; and the 
two original plays contain several passages, and also 
some short scenes, which do not occur in the others. 
Besides nothing about them bears the impress of an 
ill-made copy ; the versification is regular, and the style 
is only much more prosaic than that of the passages 
which undubitably belong to Shakspeare : from whence 
it would result that the copyist had omitted precisely 
those features which were most striking, and best 
calculated to impress themselves upon the imagination 
and the memory. 

There only remains, therefore, the supposition of a 
first sketch, afterwards perfected by its author. Among 
the proofs of detail which Mr. Malone accumulates, in 
opposition to this opinion, and which are not all equally 
conclusive, there is, however, one which deserves to be 
taken into consideration, and that is, that the original 



382 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

plays are evidently based upon Hall's chronicle, whereas 
Shakspeare always followed Holinshed, never borrowing 
from Hall, except when Holinshed has copied him. 
It is not at all probable that, if he had used Hall for his 
first works, he would afterwards have left the original 
for the copyist. TS8 9I * jol ; g-iotoa od$ ol gfrijgjni lo 
If these two opinions be rejected, we must suppose 
that Shakspeare borrowed without scruple, from the 
work of another, the substance and stufT which he 
afterwards enriched with his own embroidery. His 
numerous borrowings from the dramatic authors of this 
time render this supposition very easy of credence, and 
the following fact, in this special instance, is almost 
equivalent to a proof of its legitimacy. In the first 
place, it must be observed that the two original pieces 
which were printed in 1600 existed as early as 15 98 ; 
for we find them, at that period, registered under the 
same title, and with the name of the same bookseller, in 
the registers of the Stationers' Company. What cause 
delayed the publication of these two plays until 1600, it 
is useless just now to discuss; but the proof of the 
antiquity of their existence acquires, in the discussion 
which now occupies our attention, considerable import- 
ance from the following passage in a pamphlet by 
Greene, a very prolific author, who died in the month of 
September, 1592. In this pamphlet, which was written 
a short time before his death and printed immediately 
after, as he had ordered in his will, Greene addresses his 



KING HENRY VI. 383 

farewell advice to several of his friends, literary men like 
himself ; and the object of this advice is to dissuade 
them from working for the theatre, if they desire to 
escape the griefs of which he complains. One of the 
motives which he gives for so doing is the imprudence 
of trusting to the actors ; for, he says, " there is an 
upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with 
his Tiger s heart wrapped in a player s /ride, 1 supposes he 
is as well able to bombast out a blank verse, as the best 
of you; and, being an absolute Johannes Factotum^ is, 
in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in the 
country." 2 These passages leave no doubt as to 
Shakspeare's having borrowed from Greene as early as 
in 1592; and as the three parts of " Henry VI." are 
the only dramas of our poet which it is believed can 
be placed before that period, the question would seem 
to be almost settled ; while, at the same time, the 
quotation by Greene, on this occasion, of a line from the 
original play, would prove that it was this borrowing 
which went to mis heart. It is therefore very probable 
that Shakspeare, who was then an actor, and exercised 
the activity of his genius as yet only for the advantage 
of his troop, may have tried to bring upon the stage, 
with greater success, dramas already known, and the 
substance of which furnished him with a few beauties 

1 In allusion to a line in the old play — " The First Part of the Contention : " 

B ^(mm^o^mm9of^kr life/** 



384 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

which he could turn to account. As plays then 
belonged, according to all appearances, to the actors 
who had bought them, the undertaking was a natural 
one, and the success of (j Henry VI." may probably 
have been the first indication, in reliance upon which 
a genius as yet ignorant of its own strength ventured to 
dart forward on its career. 

In order to explain why Shakspeare, after thus remo- 
delling the two plays from which he constructed the 
second and third parts of " Henry VI.," did not do 
the same work for the first part, it will be sufficient to 
suppose that the first part already enjoyed enough 
success upon the stage to prevent the interest of the 
actors from requiring any change in it. This supposition 
is, moreover, supported by a passage in a pamphlet by 
Thomas Nashe, in which he says : u How would it have 
joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think 
that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he 
should triumph again on the stage, and have his bones 
new embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators 
at least (at several times), who, in the tragedian that 
represents his person, behold him fresh bleeding." 1 Nashe, 
the intimate friend of Greene, would probably not have 
spoken in such terms of one of Shakspeare' s plays, and 
perhaps the success achieved by this drama may have 
induced Shakspeare to render the other two parts worthy 
to share in its triumph ; but even with this supposition, 

1 Nashe's "Pierce Penniless; his Supplication to the Devil." 



KM® m RT 385 

it would be difficult not to believe that, cither before or 
afterwards, Shakspeare had enhanced, by a few touches, 
the colouring of a work which had only succeeded in 
pleasing his contemporaries because Shakspeare had not 
yet made his appearance. The scenes, therefore, between 
Talbot and his son must be by him, or else we must 
believe that, before his time, there existed in England a 
dramatic author capable of attaining that touching and 
noble truthfulness of which very few, even of his suc- 
cessors, have divined the secret. Nothing can be finer 
than this description of the two heroes — one dying, and 
the other scarcely initiated into a warrior's life • the 
first, satiated with glory, and, in his paternal anxiety, 
desirous rather to save the life than the honour of his 
son \ the other, stern and inflexible, determined to prove 
his filial affection by seeking death at his father's side, 
and by his carefulness thus to maintain the honour of 
his race. This position, varied by all the alternations of 
fear and hope which can be occasioned by the chances of 
a battle, in which the father saves his son, and the 
son is eventually slain at a distance from his father, 
contains in itself almost the interest of a drama ; and 
there is every reason to believe that Shakspeare added 
this ornament to a play which his close connection with 
those parts of it which he had remodelled had, as it 
were, incorporated into his works. It must also be 
observed, that the scenes between Talbot and his son 
are almost entirely in rhyme, as is the case in many of 



386 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

Shakspeare's works, whereas, in the rest of the play, as 
well as in the two plays which appear to be intended 
as a continuation of it, there is scarcely a rhyme to 
be found. The scene which, in the first part of 
"Henry VI.,' ' contains most rhyme, is that in which 
we behold Mortimer dying in prison ; and we might 
therefore suppose that it had received at least some 
additions from the hand of Shakspeare. These additions, 
and a few others perhaps, in all not very numerous, may 
have furnished the editors of 1623 with what appeared 
to them a sufficient reason for including, among the 
works of a poet who had excelled all competitors, a 
play which owed its entire merit to what he had added 
to it, and which was also necessarily connected with 
two other works which contained too much of his 
composition to be omitted from the number of his 
productions. 

As to the insertion of Shakspeare's name in Pavier's 
edition of the two original plays, it is easy to explain it 
as a bookseller's trick — a kind of fraud extremely 
common at that time, and winch has been practised in 
reference to several dramatic works composed upon 
subjects which Shakspeare had treated, and which the 
publishers hoped to sell by favour of his name. This 
conjecture is rendered all the more probable by the fact 
that this edition is undated, although we know that it 
appeared in 1619 ; which might be a petty bookselling 
scheme to make purchasers believe that it had appeared 



KING HENRY VI. 387 

during the lifetime of the author whose name it had 
borrowed. 

We are ignorant of the precise period of the perform- 
ance of the first part of " Henry VL," which, according 
to Malone, originally bore the name of " The Historical 
Play of King Henry the Sixth." The style of this play, 
except so much of it as we may attribute to Shakspeare, 
bears the same character as that of all the dramatic 
works of the period which preceded the compositions of 
our poet: the grammatical construction is very irregular, 
the tone is simple but undignified, and the versification 
sufficiently prosaic. The interest, which is somewhat 
mediocre — although the play is full of movement — is 
furthermore greatly diminished, in our view, by the 
ridiculous and uncouth absurdity of the part of Joan of 
Arc, which may, however, give us a most exact idea of 
the spirit in which the English chroniclers have written 
the history of this heroic maiden, and of the aspect 
under which they have described her. In this sense, the 
play is historical. 

The second part of " Henry VI.," though much more 
interesting than the first, is not conducted with much 
greater art : monologues are continually employed to 
explain the facts, and feelings are expressed in asides. 
The scenes, separated by considerable intervals (for the 
whole play comprehends the space of ten years), are 
connected with each other by no link ; we can perceive 
none of those efforts which Shakspeare made, in most 



c c 2 



388 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

of liis other works, to unite them together, sometimes 
even at the expense of probability ; and as, at the same 
time, we are never informed of the interval which sepa- 
rates them, we are frequently astonished at finding 
ourselves transferred, without having remarked it, to a 
distance of several years from the event which we have 
just seen accomplished. The different parts of the play, 
moreover, do not depend essentially upon each other, 
which is a fault very rare in the works that are indis- 
putably acknowledged to be productions of Shakspeare's 
pen. Thus, for example, the adventure of Simpcox is 
absolutely superfluous ; that of the armourer and his 
apprentice is but feebly connected with the subject ; 
and the pirates who put Suffolk to death have nothing- 
whatever to clo with the rest of the plot. As to the 
general cast ot the characters, it is lar irom correspond- 
ing to Shakspeare's ordinary talent. It cannot, however, 
be denied that there is some merit in the portraiture of 
Henry, a prince whose pious sentiments and constant 
goodness almost always succeed in interesting us, not- 
withstanding the ridiculousness of his weakness and 
poverty of mind, which border closely upon imbecility. 
The part of Margaret also is tolerably well sustained • 
but her excess of falsity to her husband exceeds the 
limits of probability ; and Shakspeare would not, in his 
good time at least, have ascribed to two such criminals 
as Margaret and Suffolk such tender feelings as those 
which mark their last interview. As for Warwick 



KING HENRY VI. 389 

and Salisbury, they are two characters without any 
kind of connection, and which it is utterly impossible 
to explain. 

Whether Shakspeare is or is not the author of the 
play entitled, " The First Part of the Contention betwixt 
the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster," the 
Second Part of " Henry VI." is entirely based upon that 
work. Shakspeare has, however, quoted from it ver- 
batim only to a small extent, and particularly in the 
scenes of rapid dialogue, like that of the adventure of 
Simpcox, the fight between the two artizans, and the 
dispute between Gloster and the Cardinal at the hunt ; 
he has made but few alterations in these pieces, as well 
as in a part of Cade's rebellion. That horribly effective 
scene, however, in which Lord Say falls into the hands 
of the populace, is almost entirely bv Shakspeare. As 
for the rather long speeches, he has embellished them 

all, more or less, and most of them even belong entirely 
to VniHiT & J 

to him, as for instance, those of Henry on behalf of 

Gloster, those of Margaret to her husband, a great part 

of Gloster' s defence, some of York's monologues, and 

nearly the whole of the part of young Clifford. It is 

not difficult to discern Shakspeare's hand in these, as the 

poetry is bolder, more brilliant with imagery, and less 

free perhaps from that abuse of wit which Shakspeare 

does not appear to have borrowed from the dramatic 

poets of the period. Moreover, with the exception of 

t certain number of anachronisms common to all 



390 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

Shakspeare's works, this play is tolerably faithful to 
history ; and the perusal of chronicles imparted to the 
author s of historical dramas, at this period, a character of 
truthfulness, and means of interest, which superior men 
alone can derive from subjects of their own invention. 

The third part of " Henry VI." comprises the interval 
from the spring of the year 1455, until the end of 1471, 
that is, a space of nearly sixteen years, during which 
fourteen battles were fought, which, according to a 
probably much exaggerated calculation, cost more than 
eighty thousand combatants their lives. Blood and 
deaths are, therefore, not spared in this drama, although, 
of these fourteen battles, only four are represented, with 
which the author has been careful to connect the prin- 
cipal facts of all the fourteen ; these facts are, for the 
most part, assassinations in cold blood, accompanied by 
the most atrocious circumstances, sometimes borrowed 
from history, and sometimes added by the author or 
authors. Thus, the circumstance of the handkerchief 
steeped in the blood of Rutland, and given to his father, 
York, to dry his tears, is a pure invention; and the 
character of Richard, both in this piece and the pre- 
ceding one, is equally fictitious. Richard was much 
younger than his brother Rutland, who is here repre- 
sented as his junior, and he could not possibly have 
taken any part in the events upon which the two dramas 
are founded ; but his character is, in other respects, well 
announced and well sustained. That of Margaret does 



KING HENRY VI. 391 

not belie itself ; and that of Henry, through the progress 
of his weakness and imbecility, still affords ns casual 
glimpses of those gentle and pious feelings which made 
him so interesting in the first part. These portions of 
his part belong entirely to Shakspeare, as well as most 
of Henry's meditations during the battle of Towton, his 
speech to the lieutenant of the Tower, his scene with the 
keepers, and so forth j and these pieces are either 
entirely wanting, or merely outlined, in the original play. 
It is easy to distinguish the passages which were added, 
for they are characterised by a charm and simplicity of 
imagery which the style of the original work nowhere 
presents. Sometimes, also, the passages retouched by 
Shakspeare, whether of his own work, or that of another, 
are remarkable for that refinement of wit which is 
familiar to him, and which is not compensated, in this 
case, by that consistency and coherence of imagery which, 
in his best works, almost always accompany his 
subtleties. This may be remarked, for example, in 
Richard's lamentations over the death of his father ; it 
would be difficult to attribute them to any other than 
Shakspeare, so clearly do they bear his impress ; but it 
would be equally difficult to ascribe them to his better 
time, and their imperfection might serve as an additional 
proof that the three parts of " Henry VI.," as we 
possess them at the present day, present us, not with 
Shakspeare corrected by himself, but with Shakspeare 
- employing the first efforts of his genius to correct the 



392 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

works of others. He has, besides, embellished this part 
much less than the preceding one, which probably 
appeared to him more worthy of his attention ; with 
the exception of Margaret's speech before the battle 
of Tewkesbury, a part of the scene between Edward 
and Lady Grey, and a few other unimportant passages, 
we can add no more to - those which have been 
quoted already as belonging entirely to the corrected 
work. The greater part of the original play is repro- 
duced word for word ; and we also meet with the same 
want of connection which is noticeable in the first and 
second parts. The horrors which are accumulated in 
this part are painted with a certain amount of energy, 
but it is far removed from that profound truthfulness 
which, in his finest works, Shakspeare has extracted, as 
it were, from the very bowels of nature. 






. 



KING KICHABD III. 

(1597.) 

Richard III. is one of those men who have produced 
upon the time in which they lived an impression of 
horror and dread which is always based upon some real 
cause, although it may afterwards lead to an exaggeration 
of the realities of the case. Holinshed calls him " one of 
those bad persons who will not live an hour without 
doing and exercising cruelty, mischief, and an outrageous 
manner of living. ' ' Undoubtedly — and historical criticism 
has supplied the proof of this — the life of Richard has 
been charged with several crimes which do not properly 
belong to him ; but these errors and exaggerations, 
the natural result of the popular feeling, explain, though 
they do not justify, the whimsical attempt of Horace 
Walpole to rehabilitate the memory of Richard, by 
purging him of most of the crimes of which he is 
accused. This is one of those paradoxical questions 
upon which the mind of the critic who allows himself 
to engage in it becomes excited, and in which the most 
ingenious discussion serves only to prove to what 



394 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

extent tile mind may be employed to embarrass the 
simple and steady progress of truth. Doubtless we 
must not judge a person who lived in those times of 
disorder, by the gentle and regular habits of our 
modern ideas, and many things must be laid to the 
charge of the men and facts in the midst of which 
historical characters appear. But when, at the epoch 
at which Richard III. lived, after the horrors of the 
Red and White Roses, the public hatred chose out one 
man from among all to present him as a model of cruelty 
and perfidy, there must assuredly have been something 
extraordinary in his crimes, were it only the distinction 
which is added to them by superiority of talents and cha- 
racter, which, when it is employed in the service of crime, 
renders it at once more dangerous and more insulting. 

The generally received opinion regarding Richard 
may have contributed to the success of the play which 
bears his name ; and perhaps not one of Shakspeare's 
works has attained more abiding popularity in Eng- 
land. The critics have not usually treated it so favour- 
ably as the public ; some of them, and Johnson among 
the number, have expressed their astonishment at its 
prodigious success. We might, on the other hand, feel 
astonished at their surprise, if we did not know, by 
experience, that the critic, whose duty it is to introduce 
order into riches which the public has enjoyed at first 
confusedly, sometimes becomes so attached to this 
order, and particularly to the manner in which he has 



KING RICHARD III. 395 

conceived it, that lie allows himself easily to be induced 
to condemn those beauties for which he cannot find a 
convenient place within the limits of his system. 

" Richard III./' more than any other of Shakspeare's 
great works, presents the defects common to the his- 
torical dramas, which, before his time, held possession 
of the stage ; we find in it that accumulation of facts, 
that aggregation of catastrophes, that improbability of 
dramatic progress and theatrical execution, which are 
the necessary results of all that material movement 
which Shakspeare has reduced, as much as possible, 
in those objects which he had more freely at his 
disposal, but which could not be avoided in national 
subjects of such recent date, all the details of which 
were so freshly present to the memory of the spec- 
tators. Perhaps we ought, therefore, to admire- all the 
•more that genius which could trace out its course 
through this chaos, and follow up in this labyrinth a 
thread which is never broken or lost. One idea domi- 
nates the whole drama, and that is, the just punish- 
ment of the crimes which stained the quarrels of York 
and Lancaster with blood. At once an example and 
an organ of the divine wrath, Margaret, by her cries 
of agony, incessantly invokes vengeance upon those who 
have committed so many evil deeds, and even upon those 
who have profited by them ; she it is who appears to them 
when this vengeance has fallen upon them ; her name is 
mingled with the terror of their last moments : and 



396 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

they believe they fall as much beneath her curse as 
under the blows of Richard — the sacrificial priest of the 
bloody temple of which Margaret is the sibyl, and who 
will himself fall, the last victim of the holocaust, carrying 
with him all the crimes he has avenged, as well as all 
that he has committed. 

That fatality which, in " Macbeth," is revealed in 
the shape of the witches, and in " Richard III.," in the 
person of Margaret, is nevertheless by no means the 
same in both dramas. Macbeth, drawn aside from 
virtue into crime, presents to our imagination a terrible 
picture of the power of the enemy of man, — a power 
which is, however, subject to the eternal and supreme 
Master, who prepares its punishment with the same 
stroke which effects its overthrow. Richard, a much 
more direct and voluntary agent of the spirit of evil, 
seems rather to play with him than to obey him ; and 
in tins terrible sport of the infernal powers, it is, as it 
were en passant, that the justice of Heaven is exercised, 
until the final moment when it bursts forth without 
mitigation upon the guilty and insolent wretch who 
fancied he was braving it, while he was working out its 
designs. 

This difference in the progress of the ideas is carried 
out in all the details of the character and destiny of the 
personages. Macbeth, when once fallen, sustains him- 
self only by the intoxicating influence of the blood into 
which he plunges deeper and deeper \ and he reaches 



KIXO- RICHARD III. 397 

his term, fatigued by a movement so alien to his nature, 
disabused with regard to the possessions which have 
cost him so dear, and deriving from the natural 
elevation of his character alone, the force to defend that 
which he hardly desires any longer to preserve. 
Richard, as inferior to Macbeth for depth of feeling as 
he is superior to him in strength of mind, has sought, in 
crime itself, the pleasure of exercising his stifled facul- 
ties, and of making others feel a superiority which they 
had ignored or disdained. He deceives, that he may at 
once succeed and deceive, — that he may subject men to 
himself, and give himself the pleasure of despising them. 
He laughs, both at his dupes and at the means which he 
has employed to dupe them ; and to the satisfaction 
which he feels at having conquered them, is added that 
of having acquired a proof of their weakness. His 
discoveries, however, are not yet sufficient to satisfy the 
tyranny of his will ; baseness never goes quite so far as 
he intended, and as he found it necessary to suppose. 
Compelled afterwards to sacrifice the means which he 
had first corrupted, he is incessantly obliged to seduce 
new agents in order to ruin new victims. But at length 
the moment arrives when his means of seduction are no 
longer sufficient to surmount the difficulties which he 
has created, and when the bait which he can offer to the 
passions of men is no longer strong enough to overcome 
the terror with which he has inspired them regarding 
their most pressing interests ; and then those whom he 



39« SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

had divided, in order to make them fall by means of 
one another, unite against himself. He once felt himself 
too strong for each of them; he is now alone against 
them all, and he has ceased to hope for himself; he 
does himself justice, but without abandoning his own 
cause, and goes to wreck upon the obstacle which he is 
indignant at being no longer able to overcome. 

The portraiture of such a personage, and of the 
passions which he can bring into play in order to make 
them subserve his interests, presents a spectacle which 
is all the more striking because we clearly see that 
Richard's hypocrisy acts only upon those whose interest 
it is to allow themselves to be blinded by it. The 
people remain mute to the cowardly appeals by which 
they are invited to unite with the men in power, who 
are about to give their voice in favour of injustice ; or, 
if a few inferior voices be raised, it is to express a 
general feeling of alienation and disquietude, and to 
disclose the existence of a discontented nation, side by 
side with a servile Court. The expectations which result 
from this state of things, the pathos of several scenes, 
the sombre energy of Margaret's character, and the 
restless curiosity connected with projects so threatening in 
their nature, and so animated in their conduct, unite to 
impart to this work an interest which fully explains the 
constancy of its success. 

The style of " Richard III." is tolerably simple, and, 
with the exception of one or two dialogues, it is marked 



KING RICHARD III. 399 

by few of those subtleties which sometimes fatigue us 
even in Shakspeare's finest dramas. In the part of 
Richard, one of the wittiest of the tragic portion of the 
play, the wit is almost entirely exempt from refinement. 
This drama comprises a space of fourteen years, from 
1471 until 1485. It appears to have been performed in 
1597; but, before its production, several other plays 
had been written on the same subject. 
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KING HEKRY VTII. 

(1601.) 

Although Johnson places "Hqjiry VIII." in the 
second rank of Shakspeare's historical dramas, with 
-Richard III.," "Richard II.," and "King John," 
this work is far from approaching in merit the least of 
those with which the critic compares it. A desire to 
please Queen Elizabeth, or perhaps a command from 
that princess that he should compose a drama of which 
her birth should in some sort constitute the subject, 
could not supply the place of that liberty which is the 
soul of genius. The attempt to introduce Henry VIII. 
upon the stage in presence of his daughter, and of a 
daughter whose mother he had put to death, presented 
a complication of difficulties which the poet did not 
endeavour to surmount. The character of Henry is 
completely insignificant; but it is somewhat extraor- 
dinary to notice the interest with which the poet of 
Elizabeth has invested Catherine of Arragon. In the 
part of Wolsey, especially at the moment of his downfall, 
we may discern the touch of the great master • but it 



KING HENRY VIII. 401 

appears that, in the opinion of the English, the great 
merit of the work consists in its pomps and splendour, 
which have led to its being frequently reproduced 
upon the stage on occasions of great solemnity. 
" Henry VIII." has for us a literary interest, on account 
of its style, which the poet has certainly been careful to 
bring into conformity with the language of the Court, as 
spoken in his own time, or a few years previously. In 
no other of his works is the style so elliptical ; the 
habits of conversation seem to introduce into the con- 
struction of its sentences, that economy and abbreviation 
which, in English pronunciation, deprive words of nearly 
half their syllables. Moreover, we find in it scarcely any 
plays upon words, and. excepting only in a few passages, 
very little poetry. 

" Henry VIII." was performed, it is believed, in 1601, 
at the end of the reign of Elizabeth, and revived, as it 
would appear, after her death, in 1613. There is reason 
to believe that the panegyric on James I., which is 
inserted at the end of the prediction concerning 
Elizabeth, was added at this period, either by Shakspeare 
himself, or by Ben Jonson, to whom the prologue and 
epilogue are pretty generally attributed. It was, it is 
believed, at this revival, in 1613, that the cannon 
discharged on the arrival of the King at Wolsey's palace, 
set fire to the Globe Theatre, which was burnt to the 
ground. 

The play comprises a period of twelve years, from 



402 SHAKSPEARE'S HISTORICAL DRAMAS. 

1521 until 1533. Before the composition of Shak- 
speare's drama, we are not aware of the existence of any 
play on the same subject. 



One common character is manifested in all Shakspeare's 
historical dramas, and that is, the profoundly national 
and popular feeling which animates the poet. Upon 
the events and personages which he represents, he thinks 
and feels like his audience, like the simplest and most 
ignorant of his audience ; he cares neither for truth, nor 
for justice; he has not the slightest pretension to 
redress errors, or to reprehend public passions ; he 
abandons himself without reserve to these feelings, for 
he shares in them, and reckons upon them for his 
success. The profound and sensible moralist, the man 
who possesses so accurate a knowledge of the human 
heart, the truthful delineator of the most varied 
characters, is at the same time the blindest and most 
passionate of English patriots. He has penetrated, by 
turns, with admirable intelligence and independence, 
into the souls of Hamlet, of Romeo, of Macbeth, and 
of Othello ; but as soon as he approaches the history of 
his own country in relation to that of other lands, all 
independence and impartiality of mind abandon him • 
in all things and regarding all persons, he thinks and 
judges absolutely like John Bull. 















THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

(1598.) 

The substance of the adventure which constitutes the 
subject of " The Merchant of Venice " will be found in 
the chronicles or literature of almost every country, 
sometimes entire, and sometimes unaccompanied by the 
very piquant episode of the loves of Bassanio and 
Portia. A judgment similar to that of Portia has been 
attributed to Pope Sixtus V., who, with greater severity, 
condemned, it is said, both the contractors of the 
engagement to a heavy fine, as a punishment for the 
immorality of their contract. On this occasion, the 
subject of dispute was a bet, and the Jew was the loser. 
A collection of French novels, entitled "Roger Bontemps 
en belle Humeur/' relates the same story, but it is to 
the advantage of the Christian, and Sultan Saladin is 
the judge. In a Persian manuscript which narrates the 
same adventure, a rich Jew makes this bargain with a 
poor Syrian Mussulman, in order to obtain the means of 
ruining him, and thereby succeeding in gaining posses- 
sion of his wife, with whom he is violently in love : this 

D D 2 



404 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

case is decided by a Gadi of Emesa. But the whole 
story is related, with a few slight differences, in a very 
old work written in Latin, and entitled, " Gesta 
Romanorum :"■ as well as in the "Pecorone" of Ser 
Giovanni, a collection of novels composed before the 
end of the fourteenth century, and therefore long 
anterior to Sixtus V., which renders the anecdote told 
about this Pope by Gregorio Leti extremely improbable. 
In the novel of Ser Giovanni, the lady of Belmont is 
not a young girl forced to subject her choice to the 
condition prescribed by the singular will of her father, 
but a young widow who, of her own accord, imposes a 
much more singular condition upon those whom chance 
or choice may bring into her port. Compelled to share 
the bed of the lady, if they can succeed in profiting by 
the advantages afforded them by such a position, they 
will obtain possession of the widow's person and 
property. But if they fail, they lose their vessel and its 
cargo, and are sent off at once with a horse and a suffi- 
cient sum of money to defray their expenses homeward. 
Undeterred by this test, many tried the adventure, but 
all failed ; for no sooner had they entered the bed than 
they fell into a sound sleep, from which they only 
awoke on the following morning to learn that the lady 
had already unloaded the ship, and prepared the horse 
which was intended to convey the unlucky aspirant 
home again. No one attempted to renew so costly an 
enterprise, the ill-success of which discouraged even the 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 405 

boldest of adventurers. Gianetto alone (such is the 
name of the young Venetian in the novel) persevered, 
and after two failures determined to risk a third adven- 
ture. His godfather Ansaldo, notwithstanding the loss 
of the first two vessels, of which he had received no 
account, equips for him a third, with which Gianetto 
promises amply to repair their losses. But,' exhausted 
by his previous undertakings, Ansaldo is obliged, for 
the third venture, to borrow the sum of ten thousand 
ducats from a Jew, on the same conditions as those 
which Shylock imposes upon Antonio. Gianetto arrives 
at Belmont, and, being warned by a servant not to 
drink the wine which will be offered him before going 
to bed, ^t last surprises the lady, who, though at first 
greatly disconcerted at finding him awake, nevertheless 
resigns herself to her fate, and thinks herself happy to 
proclaim him her husband on the following day. 
Gianetto, intoxicated with his happiness, forgets poor 
Ansaldo until the fatal day when the bond becomes due. 
He then recollects the circumstance by chance, hastens 
to Venice, and the rest of the story occurs as Shakspeare 
has related it. 

It is easy to perceive the reason and necessity of the 
various changes which he has introduced into this 
adventure. It was not, however, so impossible of 
representation upon the stage, in his time, as not to 
authorise us to suppose that he was induced to make 
these changes by a desire to impart greater morality to 



406 SHAKSPE ARE'S COMEDIES. 

his personages, and greater interest to the action. Thus, 
the position of the generous Antonio, and the delineation 
of his character, at once so devoted, courageous, and 
melancholy, are not the only source of the charm which 
reigns so powerfully throughout the work. The gaps 
which this position leaves are, at all events, so happily 
filled up that we can perceive no void, so pleasantly is 
the soul occupied with the feelings which naturally arise 
from it. It seems as though Shakspeare were desirous 
here to describe the first delightful days of a happy 
marriage, beneath their different points of view. The 
speech of Portia to Bassanio, at the moment when fate 
has just decided in his favour, and when she already 
regards herself as his happy spouse, is full of such pure 
abandonment, and of conjugal submission at once so 
touching and so noble, that her character derives from 
it an inexpressible charm ; and Bassanio, assuming from 
that instant the superior rank which befits him, no 
longer has to fear that he will be degraded by the spirit 
and courage of his wife, although the part which she 
takes the moment afterwards, is so decided. We know 
that now the moment of necessity is past, everything 
falls into its proper order, and that the high qualities 
which she will subject to her duty as a wife will only 
add to the happiness of her husband. 

In a subordinate class, Lorenzo and Jessica afford a 
pleasing exhibition of the tender jocoseness of two 
voung married people, who are so filled with their 



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. 407 

happiness that they diffuse it over objects most foreign to 
themselves, and enjoy the most indifferent thoughts and 
actions, as if they were so many portions of an existence 
entirely pervaded by happiness. The conversation 
between Lorenzo and Jessica, the garden, the moonlight, 
the music which welcomes the return of Portia and 
Bassanio, and the arrival of Antonio, dispose the soul to 
all the sweet impressions which will be occasioned by 
the image of complete felicity, in the union of Portia and 
Bassanio in the midst of all the friends who are about to 
enjoy their cares and benefactions. Shakspeare is almost 
the only dramatic poet who has not feared to dwell upon 
the picture of happiness ; but he felt that he had the 
means of filling it, 

The invention of the three coffers, the original of 
which also occurs in many places, is to be found, in 
almost the same shape as that which Shakspeare has 
used, in another adventure of the " Gesta Romanorum," 
excepting only that the person subjected to the trial is 
the daughter of a king of Apulia, who, from the wisdom 
of her choice, is deemed worthy to espouse the son of 
the Emperor of Rome. It will be seen from that 
circumstance, that these " Gesta Romanorum" do not 
precisely extend so far back as the ages of historical 
antiquity. 

The character of the Jew, Shylock, is justly celebrated 
in England. 

This drama was performed before the year 1598; 



408 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

but we possess no certain information regarding its date. 
Several plays on the same subject had previously been 
brought on the stage ; and it had also formed the 
substance of a number of ballads. 

In 1701, Mr. Granville, afterwards Marquis of 
Lansdowne, restored " The Merchant of Venice" to 
the stage, with numerous alterations, under the title of 
" The Jew of Venice." It was performed for a long 
time under this new form. 

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- 



THE MERRY WIVES 0E WINDSOR. 
(iepi.) 

According to a generally received tradition, the 
comedy of " Tlie Merry Wives of Windsor " was com- 
posed by order of Queen Elizabeth, who, having been 
greatly delighted with Ealstaff, desired to see him once 
again on the stage. Shakspeare had promised that 
Ealstaff should die in " Henry V." 1 but doubtless, 
after having introduced him once again, feeling em- 
barrassed by the difficulty of establishing new relations 
between Ealstaff and Henry when the latter had become 
king, he satisfied himself with announcing, at the 
opening of the piece, the sickness and death of Ealstaff, 
without presenting him afresh to the eyes of the 
public. Elizabeth was of opinion that this was a breach 
of faith, and required a new description of the life of the 
fat knight. It therefore appears that " The Merry Wives 
of Windsor " was composed after " Henry V.," although 
in historical order it ought to take precedence. Some 
commentators have even held, in opposition to Johnson's 

1 See the Epilogue of the Second Part of " Henry IV." 



410 SHAKSPE ARE'S COMEDIES. 

opinion, that this drama should be placed between the 
two parts of "Henry IV.;" but there appears to be, in 
favour of Johnson's opinion, which places it between 
" Henry IV." and " Henry V.," one conclusive reason, 
and that is, that according to the other supposition, the 
unity, if not of character, at least of impression and 
effect, would be entirely destroyed. 

The two parts of [[ Henry IV." were composed at, a 
single effort, or at least without wandering from the same 
train of ideas ; not only is the Falstaff of the Second 
Part precisely the same man as the Falstaff of the First 
Part, but he is presented under the same aspect ; and 
if, in this Second Part, Falstaff is not quite so amusing, 
because he has made his fortune, and because his wit is 
no longer employed in incessantly extricating him from 
the ridiculous embarrassments into which he is thrown 
by the assertion of pretensions so utterly at variance 
with his tastes and habits, he is nevertheless brought 
upon the stage with the same class of tastes and habits. 
He brings his influence with Henry to bear upon Justice 
Shallow, just as he used to boast, among his confidants, 
of the freedom with which he treated the prince ; and 
the public affront which serves as his punishment at the 
end of the Second Part of " Henry IV." is only the 
consequence and complement of the private affronts 
which Henry V., when Prince of Wales, had amused 
himself by putting upon him during the course of the 
two plays. In a word, the action which is begun 



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 411 

between Falstaff and the prince, in the First Part, is 
followed up without interruption in the Second Part, and 
then terminated as it necessarily was destined to finish, 
and as he had announced that it would finish. 

" The Merry Wives of Windsor " presents a different 
action, and exhibits Falstaff in another position, and 
under another point of view. He is indeed the same 
man; it would be impossible to mistake him ; but he 
has grown older, and plunged deeper into his material 
tastes, and is solely occupied m satisfying the wants of 
his gluttony. Doll Tear-Sheet, at least, still abused his 
imagination, for with her he thought himself a libertine ; 
but here, he has no such thought ; he is anxious to 
make the insolence of his gallantries serve to supply 
him with money \ and his vanity still deceives him with 
regard to the means of obtaining this money. Elizabeth, 
"it is said, had desired Shakspeare to describe Falstaff in 
love ; but Shakspeare, who was better acquainted with 
the personages of his own conception, felt that this 
kind of ridiculousness was not suited to such a 
character, and that it was necessary to punish Falstaff 
hi a more sensitive point. Even his vanity would not 
be sufficient for this purpose • for Falstaff could derive 
advantage from every disgrace in which he was involved ; 
and he had now reached such a point, as no longer even 
to seek to dissemble his shame. The liveliness with 
which he describes to Mr. Brook his sufferings in the 
basket of dirty linen is no longer the vivacity of Falstaff 



412 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

relating his exploits against the robbers of Gadshill, 
and afterwards getting out of the scrape so pleasantly 
when his falsehood is brought home to him. The 
necessity for boasting of himself is no longer one of his 
chief necessities ; he wants money, money above all 
things, and he will be suitably chastised only by meon* 
veniences as real as the advantages which he promises 
himself. Thus, the buck-basket, and the blows of 
Mr. Ford, are perfectly adapted to the kind of pre- 
tensions which draw upon FalstafT such a correction; 
but although such an adventure may, without any 
difficulty, be adapted to the "FalstafT of " Henry IV.," it 
applies to him in another part of his life and character ; 
and if it were introduced between the two parts of the 
action which is continued in the two parts of "Henry 
IV.," it would chill the imagination of the spectator to 
such a degree as entirely to destroy the effect of the 
second part. 

Although this reason may appear sufficient, we might 
adduce many others in justification of Johnson's opinion. 
They must not, however, be sought for in chronology. 
It would be an impracticable work to endeavour to 
harmonise the different chronological data which Shak- 
speare is pleased to establish, often in the same piece; 
and it is as impossible to find, chronologically, the 
place of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" between 
"Henry IV." and "Henry V.," as between the two 
parts of "Henry IV." But, adopting this last sup- 



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. 413 

position, the interview between Shallow and Falstaff in 
the Second Part of " Henry IV.," the pleasure which 
Shallow feels at seeing Falstaff again, after so long a 
separation, and the respect which he professes for him, 
and which he carries so far as to lend him a thousand 
pounds, become shocking improbabilities ; for, after the 
comedy of " The Merry Wives of Windsor," Shallow 
cannot be caught by Falstaff. Nym, whom we find in 
" Henry V." is not numbered among Shakspeare' s 
followers in the Second Part of " Henry IV." With 
either supposition, it would be somewhat difficult to 
account for the personage Quickly, if we did not 
suppose that it referred to another Quickly,— a name 
which Shakspeare found it convenient to render common 
to all procuresses. The Quickly of " Henry IV." is 
married, and her name is therefore not that of a girl j 
but the Quickly of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is 
not married. 

After all, it would be superfluous to seek to establish 
in a very accurate manner the historical order of these 
three dramas ; Shakspeare himself did not bestow a 
thought upon the matter. We may, however, believe 
that, from the uncertainty in which he has left the 
whole affair, he was at least desirous that it should not 
be altogether impossible to make " The Merry Wives of 
Windsor "the continuation of " Henry IV." Hurried, 
as it would appear, by the orders of Elizabeth, he at 
first produced only a kind of sketch of this comedy, 



414 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

which was nevertheless acted for a considerable period, 
as we find it printed in the first editions of his works ; 
and it was not until several years afterwards that he 
arranged it in the form in which we now possess it. 
In this early play, FalstafT, at the moment when he is 
in the forest, alarmed by the noises which he hears on 
every side, inquires if it is not "the mad Prince of 
Wales, stealing his father's deer." This supposition is 
suppressed in the revised copy of the comedy, in which 
the poet apparently wished to endeavour to indicate a 
rather more probable order of facts. In the piece as 
we now possess it, Page reproaches Fenton with 
"having been of the company" of the Prince of Wales 
and of Poins. At all events, he no longer belongs to it; 
and we may suppose that the name of "wild prince" 
was still retained to show what the Prince of Wales had 
been, and what Henry V. no longer was. However 
this may be, although " The Merry Wives of Windsor " 
may present a less exalted kind of comicality than the 
First Part of " Henry IV.," it is, nevertheless, one of the 
most diverting productions of that gaiety of mind which 
Shakspeare has displayed in several of his comedies. 

A number of novels may contest the honour of 
having furnished Shakspeare with the substance of the 
adventure upon which he has based the plot of " The 
Merry Wives of Windsor." It was probably from 
the same sources that Moliere borrowed the idea of his 
"Ecole des Femmes." Shakspeare's own invention 



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, 415 

consists in having made the same intrigue serve to 
punish both the jealous husband and the insolent 
lover. He has thus imparted to the drama, with the 
exception of the license of a few expressions, a much 
more moral tone than that of the novels from which 
he may have derived his subject, and in which the 
husband always ends by being duped, while the lover is 
made happy. 

This comedy appears to have been composed in 1601. 

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THE TEMPEST. 

(1611.) 



" Whether this be, or be not, I'll not swear," says 
old Gonzalo, at the conclusion of the "Tempest," 
when utterly confounded by the marvels which have 
surrounded him ever since his arrival on the island. It 
seems as though, through the mouth of the honest man 
of the drama, Shakspeare desired to express the general 
effect of this charming and singular work. As brilliant, 
light, and transparent as the aerial beings with which it 
is filled, it scarcely allows itself to be apprehended by 
reflection y and hardly, through its changeful and 
diaphanous features, can we feel certain that we per- 
ceive a subject, a dramatic contexture, and real adventures, 
feelings, and personages. Nevertheless, it contains all 
these, and all these are revealed in it ; and, in rapid 
succession, each object in its turn moves the imagi- 
nation, occupies the attention, and disappears, leaving 
no trace behind but a confused emotion of pleasure 
and an impression of truth, to which we dare not either 
refuse or grant our belief. 



THE TEMPEST. 417 

"This drama/' says Warburton, "is one of the 
noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination, 
peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds 
of nature, without forsaking sense ; or, more properly, 
carries nature along with him beyond her established 
limits." Everything is, in this picture, at once fantastic 
and true. As if he were the creator of the work, as 
if he were the true enchanter, surrounded by all the 
illusions of his art, Prospero, in manifesting himself to 
us, seems the only opaque and solid body in the midst 
of a populace of airy phantoms clothed with the forms 
of life, but unpossessed of the appearances of duration. 
A few minutes scarcely elapse before the amiable Ariel, 
lighter even than when he comes with the quickness of 
thought, escapes from the contact of the magic wand, 
and, freed from the forms which are prescribed to him — 
free in fact from all sensible form, dissolves into thin 
air, in which his individual existence, as far as we are 
concerned, vanishes away. Is not that half-intelligence, 
which seems to glimmer in the monster Caliban, an 
effect of magic ? and does it not seem that, on setting foot 
out of the disenchanted isle in which he is about to be 
left to himself, we shall see him relapse into his natural 
state of an inert mass, assimilating itself by degrees to 
the earth, from which it is scarcely distinct ? When far 
from our view, what will become of that Antonio and 
that Sebastian, who were so ready to conceive plans of 
crime, and of that Alonzo, who was so easily and 



418 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

frivolously accessible to feelings of every kind ? What 
will become of the young lovers, so quickly and so 
completely enamoured of each other, and who, in our 
view, seem to have been created only that they might 
love, and to have no other object in life than to disclose 
to our view the delightful pictures of love and innocence? 
Each of these personages displays to us only that portion 
of his existence which concerns his present position; 
none of them reveals to us in himself those abysses of 
nature, or those deep sources of thought into which 
Shakspeare descends so frequently and so thoroughly ; 
but they manifest before our eyes all the outward effects 
of these inward feelings • we do not know whence they 
come, but we recognise perfectly well what they seem to 
be — true visions of which we can discern neither the 
flesh nor the bones, but the forms of which are distinct 
and familiar to us. 

Thus, by the suppleness and lightness of their nature, 
these singular creatures conduce to a rapidity of action, 
and a variety of movement, unexampled, perhaps, in any 
other of Shakspeare' s dramas. None of his other plays 
are more amusing or more animated than this, and in 
none is a lively, and even waggish, gaiety more naturally 
conjoined with serious interests, melancholy feelings, and 
touching affections. It is a fairy tale, in all the force of 
the term, and in all the vivacity of the impressions which 
such a tale can impart. 

The style of the " Tempest " shares in this kind of 



THE TEMPEST. 419 

magic. Figurative and aerial, bringing before the mind 
a host of images and impressions as vague and fugitive 
as those uncertain forms which are depicted in the 
clouds, it moves the imagination without riveting it, and 
maintains it in a state of undecided excitement, which 
renders it accessible to all the spells under which the 
enchanter desires to place it. It is a tradition in 
England, that the celebrated Lord Falkland, 1 Mr. Selclen, 
and Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, regarded the style of 
the part of Caliban, in the " Tempest," as quite peculiar 
to that personage, and as one of Shakspeare's own 
creations. Johnson is of a contrary opinion ; but, sup- 
posing the tradition to be authentic, the authority of 
Johnson would not be sufficient to invalidate that of 
Lord Falkland, a man of eminently elegant mind, and 
who was remarkable, as it would appear, for a delicacy 
of tact, which, in criticism at least, was often wanting 
in the Doctor. Besides, Lord Falkland, who was almost 
a contemporary of Shakspeare, as he was born several 
years before the death of the poet, would be entitled 
to be believed in preference regarding shades of language 
which, a hunclred-ancl-fifty years later, were naturally 



1 The most virtuous, amiable, and erudite man in England, during the reign 
of Charles I., of whom Lord Clarendon has said that " if there were no other 
brand upon the Civil War than his single loss, it must be most infamous and 
execrable to all posterity." After having boldly maintained the liberties of his 
country against Charles I., in Parliament, he joined the cause of that prince as 
soon as it became the cause of justice ; and having been made a minister of 
Charles, he died at the battle of Newbury, in despair at the misfortunes which 
he foresaw ; he was then thirty-three years of age. 



420 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

merged by Johnson under a general colour of oldness. 
If, therefore, we had any right to decide between them, 
we should be rather disposed to adhere to the opinion of 
Lord Falkland, and even to apply to the whole work 
what he has said regarding the part of Caliban alone. 
At all events, we may remark, that the style of the 
" Tempest " appears, more than any other of Shak- 
speare' s works, to differ from that general type of 
expression of thought which is found and maintained 
more or less, everywhere, in spite of the difference of 
idioms. We must probably ascribe this fact partly to 
the singularity of the position, and to the necessity for 
bringing into harmony so many different conditions, 
feelings, and interests, which, for a few hours, are 
involved in a common fate, and surrounded by the same 
supernatural atmosphere. In none of his other works, 
moreover, has Shakspeare been so sparing of plays 
upon words. 

It would be somewhat difficult to determine with 
precision to what species of the marvellous that which 
Shakspeare has employed in the "Tempest" belongs. 
Ariel is a true sylph ; but the sprites which Prospero 
subjects to him, fairies, imps, and goblins, belong to the 
popular superstitions of the North. Caliban is akin at 
once to the gnome and the demon ; his brute existence 
is animated only by an infernal malice ; and the " Oho ! 
Oho ! " with which he answers Prospero, when he 
charges him with having attempted to dishonour his 






THE TEMPEST. 421 

daughter, was the exclamation, and probably the kind 
of chuckle, ascribed, in England, to the Devil, in the old 
Mysteries in which he played a part. Setebos, whom 
the monster invokes as the god, and perhaps as the 
husband, of his mother, was held to be the devil or god 
of the Patagonians, who represented him, it was said, 
with horns growing out of his head. We cannot exactly 
picture to ourselves the manner in which this Caliban 
must have been formed, so as to account for his being 
so frequently taken for a fish ; it appears that he was 
represented with his arms and legs covered with scales ; 
but it seems to me that a fish's head, or something like 
it, would be necessary to impart any probability to the 
mistakes of which he is the object. But Shakspeare 
may, very probably, not have looked so closely into the 
matter, and may have troubled himself but little to 
"obtain an exact idea of the form suited to his 
monster. He played with his subject, and allowed it to 
flow from his brilliant imagination clothed with all the 
poetic tints which it received while passing through his 
brain. The lightness of his labour is sufficiently observ- 
able from the various inadvertences which have escaped 
from him ; as, for example, when he makes Ferdinand 
say that the Duke of Milan " and his brave son " have 
perished in the storm, although nothing whatever is said 
about this son in the remainder of the drama, and there 
is nothing to lead us to suppose that he is in existence 
upon the island, although Ariel, who assures Prospero 



422 SHAKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

that no one has perished, has only confined the crew 
under the hatches. 

The "Tempest" is a drama tolerably regular as 
regards the unities, since the storm which swamps the 
vessel in the first scene, occurs within view of the 
island, and the entire action does not embrace an 
interval of more than three hours. Some commentators 
have thought that Shakspeare might have intended to 
reply, by this specimen of what he was able to do, 
to Ben Jonson's continual criticisms upon the irre- 
gularity of his works. Dr. Johnson is of an opposite 
opinion, and regards this circumstance as an effect of 
chance and the natural result of the subject ; but there 
is one thing that might give us reason to believe that 
Shakspeare at least intended to avail himself of this 
advantage, and that is, the care with which the different 
personages, even including the boatswain who has slept 
during the whole of the action, mark the time which 
has elapsed since the beginning of the play. More 
than this ; when Ariel informs Prospero that they are 
drawing near the sixth hour, the hour in which his 
master had promised him that their labours should 
cease, Prospero replies : 

" I did say so, when first I raised the tempest." 

This remark would even seem to indicate an intention 
which the poet desired should be perceived. 



THE TEMPEST. 423 

It is not known from what sources Shakspeare 
derived the subject of the " Tempest ; " but it appears 
sufficiently certain that he borrowed it from some 
Italian novel, which it has hitherto been impossible 
to discover. 

Malone's chronology places the composition of the 
"Tempest" in the year 1612, which conjecture, how- 
ever, agrees ill with another supposition equally probable. 
While reading the Masque performed before Ferdinand 
and Miranda, it is impossible not to be struck with 
the idea that the " Tempest " was first composed to be 
performed on the occasion of some marriage festival ; 
and the lightness of the subject, as well as the brilliant 
carelessness which is remarkable in the composition, seem 
entirely to confirm this conjecture. Mr. Holt, one of 
the commentators upon Shakspeare, has supposed that 
the marriage upon which Shakspeare has poured so 
many blessings, through the mouths of Juno and Ceres, 
might very probably be that of the Earl of Essex, who 
married Lady Frances Howard in 1611, or rather 
terminated in that year his marriage, which had been 
contracted ever since 1606, but the consummation of 
which had been delayed by the travels of the Earl, 
and probably by the youth of the contracting parties. 
This last circumstance appears even to be indicated 
with considerable clearness in the scene in which great 
stress is laid upon the continence which the young 



4:H S'T7 vKSPEARE'S COMEDIES. 

lovers have promised to observe until the complete 
accomplishment of all the necessary ceremonies. Would 
it not also be possible to suppose that this piece, 
though composed in 1611 for the nuptials of the Earl 
of Essex, was not performed in London until the 
following year? 



THE END, 



BRADBTTRY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



